The Libyans

A Libyan takes aim with his AK-47

Terrorist #1: "Damn Soviet gun!"

': "'"

— Libyan terrorist's barely intelligible curses, when both their rifle and van wouldn't work, allowing Marty to escape.

The Libyan terrorists, also known as Libyan nationalists, were a group of terrorists that were trying to develop a nuclear weapon and asked for the assistance of Doctor Emmett Brown to build it. However, Doc took the plutonium to power his DeLorean time machine and built a mock weapon out of an empty bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts.

The Libyans hold Marty at gunpoint.

This act, once discovered, fueled the terrorists to hunt down and kill Doc Brown. They tracked Emmett Brown to Hill Valley and found him in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall on the morning of October 26, 1985. Two Libyans drove there in a Volkswagen Station Wagon and found him with Marty McFly. A terrorist shot Doctor Brown with an assault rifle, and then attempted to kill the lone witness, Marty. When the rifle jammed, the terrorists chased Marty around the parking lot. As Marty reached 88 miles an hour, with the time circuits activated and the plutonium chamber full, the flux capacitor activated and the DeLorean experienced temporal displacement. The ensuing flash of light disoriented the terrorists, and their van drove into a Fox Photo stand. Before Marty went back to the future, he wrote a warning for Doc, who wore a bulletproof vest that night he was shot and survived the attack.

In the 1986B timeline, Citizen Brown would make a deal with Libyans to repair the broken DeLorean and seemed to have better luck with them than his original counterpart did.

Behind the scenes

• The film leaves unanswered the question about whether the Libyans survived the crash. On one hand, Marty and Doc are apparently no longer worried about the Libyans immediately after the crash. On the other hand, Doc – who could potentially be implicated in the theft of plutonium if the Libyans are questioned – doesn't stay in Hill Valley after the weekend of October 26, 1985. In the novelization, police sirens could be heard in the distance as Doc and Marty escaped from the mall.
• Although most transcripts and reviews of the film assume that the terrorists were speaking Arabic, writer Bob Gale revealed that he actually wrote English speaking parts for them in the filming script.
• Richard L. Duran, who played the gunman, and Jeff O'Haco, the van driver, are both professional stuntmen as well as actors. In addition to the high speed chase (which also involved a stunt driver for the DeLorean), the two stuntmen had to carefully handle the crash and rollover of the van.

Appearances

• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future novelization
• Back to the Future: The Story
• Back to the Future: The Card Game (Mentioned only)
• Back to the Future: The Game
• Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 1: It's About Time (Mentioned only)
• Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 4: Double Visions (Mentioned only)