Muammar Gaddafi

"Gaddafi" redirects here. For other uses, see Gaddafi (disambiguation).

Muammar Gaddafi مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي
Gaddafi at the 12th African Union summit in Addis Ababa. (2009)
Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 September 1969
President	show all Abdul Ati al-Obeidi Muhammad az-Zaruq Rajab Mifta al-Usta Umar Abdul Razzaq as-Sawsa Muhammad al-Zanati Miftah Muhammed K'eba Imbarek Shamekh Mohamed Abu Al-Quasim al-Zwai
Prime Minister	show all Jadallah Azzuz at-Talhi Muhammad az-Zaruq Rajab Jadallah Azzuz at-Talhi Umar Mustafa al-Muntasir Abuzed Omar Dorda Abdul Majid al-Qa′ud Muhammad Ahmad al-Mangoush Imbarek Shamekh Shukri Ghanem Baghdadi Mahmudi
Preceded by	Position established
Secretary General of the General People's Congress of Libya
In office 2 March 1977 – 2 March 1979
Prime Minister	Abdul Ati al-Obeidi
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Abdul Ati al-Obeidi
Prime Minister of Libya
In office 16 January 1970 – 16 July 1972
Preceded by	Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi
Succeeded by	Abdessalam Jalloud
Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya
In office 1 September 1969 – 2 March 1977
Prime Minister	Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi Abdessalam Jalloud Abdul Ati al-Obeidi
Preceded by	Idris*
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Chairperson of the African Union
In office 2 February 2009 – 31 January 2010
Preceded by	Jakaya Kikwete
Succeeded by	Bingu wa Mutharika
Personal details
Born	(1942-06-07) 7 June 1942 Sirt, Italian Libya
Spouse(s)	Fatiha al-Nuri (Divorced) Safia Farkash (1970–present)
Children	Sons: Muhammad (b. 1970) Saif al-Islam (b. 1972) Al-Saadi (b. 1973) Hannibal (b. 1976) Moatessem-Billal (b. 1977) Saif al-Arab (b. 1982 – d. 2011 (claimed)) Khamis (1983) Milad (adopted, d.1986) (death unproven) Daughters: Ayesha (b. 1976) Hanna (adopted (posthumously?, d.1986) (death unproven)
Awards	Medal for the 1969 Revolution
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Kingdom of Libya (1961–69) Libyan Arab Republic (1969–77) Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (1977–present)
Branch/service	Libyan Army
Years of service	1961–present
Rank	Colonel
Commands	Commander-in-chief, Libyan Armed Forces
Battles/wars	Libyan–Egyptian War Chadian–Libyan conflict Uganda–Tanzania War 2011 Libyan civil war
As King of Libya

Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi(Arabic: مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī )^[variations] (born 7 June 1942) is a Libyan revolutionary and the country's head of state from 1969 to the present day. Gaddafi became head of state after removing King Idris from power in a 1969 bloodless coup, after which he established the Libyan Arab Republic. His almost 42 years in power make him one of the longest-serving non-royal rulers in history. Gaddafi incorporated Arab socialist and Arab nationalist ideas into his political philosophy, which he published in The Green Book in 1975. In 1979 he relinquished the title of prime minister and was thereafter called the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution".

During his rule the Libyan state was branded a pariah state by Western nations. A Dutch investigation concluded that Gaddafi had amassed a "billion-dollar empire" in the form of assets in, and from, an intercontinental company in the oil industry. It also claims that his assets are dispersed throughout much of Europe. Gaddafi had a strong interest in geo-political control, and was a firm supporter of OAPEC and led a Pan-African campaign for a United States of Africa. After the 1986 bombing of Libya and the subsequent 1993 imposition of United Nations (UN) sanctions, Gaddafi established closer economic and security relations with the West; cooperating with investigations into alleged Libyan acts of state-sponsored terrorism (subsequently paying compensation) and ending his nuclear weapons program, which resulted in the lifting of UN sanctions in 2003.

In early February 2011 there were major political protests against Gaddafi's government following in the wake of demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, and other parts of the Arab world. The protests quickly turned into a civil war. Gaddafi vowed to "die a martyr" if necessary in his fight against rebels and external forces, saying that those rebelling against his government deserved to die. On 17 May 2011 the International Criminal Court issued a request for an arrest warrant against Gaddafi for crimes against humanity, which was approved on 27 June and a warrant was issued by the court.

Early life

Muammar al-Gaddafi was raised in a bedouin tent in the desert near Sirt. According to most conventional biographies his family belongs to a small tribe of arabized Berbers, the Qadhadhfa, who are stockherders with holdings in the Hun Oasis. Gaddafi attended a Muslim elementary school as a youth, during which time the major events occurring in the Arab world profoundly influenced him; such as the Arab defeat in Palestine in 1948 to Israel forces and Gamal Abdel Nasser's rise to power in Egypt in 1952. He finished his secondary school studies under a private tutor in Misrata, concentrating on the study of history.

In Libya, as in a number of other Arab countries, admission to a military academy and a career as an army officer only became available to members of the lower economic strata after independence. A military career offered an opportunity for higher education, for upward economic and social mobility, and was for many the only available means of political action. For Gaddafi and many of his fellow officers, who were inspired by Nasser's brand of Arab nationalism, a military career was a revolutionary vocation.

Gaddafi entered the Libyan military academy at Benghazi in 1961 and graduated in the 1965–66 period, along with most of his colleagues from the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Gaddafi's association with the Free Officers Movement began as a cadet. The frustration and shame felt by Libyan officers at the time of Israel's defeat of the Arab armies on three fronts in 1967 fueled their determination to contribute to Arab unity by overthrowing the monarchy. An early conspirator, Gaddafi began his first plan to overthrow the monarchy while in military college.

Gaddafi pursued further studies in Europe, and many false rumors have been propogated with regards to this part of his life. Gaddafi did not attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, though he did receive further military training in the United Kingdom.

Military coup d'état

On 1 September 1969 a small group of junior military officers led by Gaddafi staged a bloodless coup d'état against King Idris while he was in Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew, the Crown Prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, was formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest; they abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic.

A plan to use mercenaries to restore the monarchy was organised by David Stirling, founder of the British Special Air Service, who had been approached by a member of the royal family. The plan — dubbed the "Hilton Assignment" in an ironic reference to Libyan jails — was to spring 150 political prisoners from Tripoli jail as a catalyst for a general uprising; the mercenaries were to slip away quietly as the locals took over. Despite Stirling's confidence the plan was called off at a late stage by the British Secret Intelligence Service, allegedly because the United States government judged that Gaddafi was sufficiently anti-Marxist and thus acceptable.

In power

Gaddafi (left) with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1969

Main articles: Libya under Gaddafi and jamahiriya

Gaddafi believed in Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideas on pan-Arabism and sought to model his government based on Nasser's Egypt. In 1970 he told Western officials that he would expel foreign corporations from Libya's oil fields if they did not share more revenue; the overthrown monarchy had received 60% of oil revenues from foreign corporations. Gaddafi also threatened to remove all foreign corporations from his oil fields if Egypt told him to, indicating that he had strong diplomatic ties with Nasser. In December 1969 Egyptian intelligence disrupted a planned coup on Gaddafi that was to be carried out by high-ranking members of his leadership, many of whom were uneasy about his growing friendship with Egypt. After the failed coup Gaddafi consolidated power by actively criminalizing any public dissent and by delegating power only to his family and closest associates.

The 27-year-old Gaddafi, with a taste for safari suits and sunglasses, then sought to become the new "Che Guevara of the age". To accomplish this Gaddafi turned Libya into a haven for anti-Western radicals, where any group, supposedly, could receive weapons and financial assistance, provided they claimed to be fighting imperialism. The Italian population in Libya almost disappeared after Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of Italians in 1970.

Gaddafi increasingly devoted attention to international rather than internal affairs over the next months, caught up in his apocalyptic visions of revolutionary pan-Arabism and Islam locked in a mortal struggle with what he termed the encircling, demonic forces of reaction, imperialism, and Zionism. As a result, routine administrative tasks fell to Major Jallud who became prime minister in place of Gaddafi in 1972. Two years later Jallud assumed Gaddafi's remaining administrative and protocol duties to allow Gaddafi to devote his time to revolutionary theorizing. Gaddafi remained the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the effective head of state. The foreign press speculated about an eclipse of his authority and personality within the RCC, but Gaddafi soon dispelled such theories by his measures to restructure Libyan society.

Growth of the Jamahiriya

Main article: Third International Theory

On the muslim prophet Muhammad's birthday in 1973, Gaddafi delivered his famous "Five-Point Address" which officially implemented Sharia. Gaddafi's ideology was largely based on Nasserism, blending Arab nationalism, aspects of the welfare state, and what Gaddafi termed "popular democracy", or more commonly "direct, popular democracy". He called this system "Islamic socialism", as he disfavored the atheistic quality of communism. While he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones. Welfare, "liberation" (or "emancipation" depending on the translation), and education was emphasized. He also imposed a system of Islamic morals and outlawed alcohol and gambling. School vacations were canceled to allow the teaching of Gaddafi's ideology in the summer of 1973.

In 1977 Gaddafi proclaimed that Libya was changing its form of government from a republic to a "jamahiriya"—a neologism that means "mass-state" or "government by the masses". In theory, Libya became a direct democracy governed by the people through local popular councils and communes. At the top of this structure was the General People's Congress, with Gaddafi as secretary-general.

Internal repression and assassinations of expatriate dissenters

Main article: Libyan opposition

Gaddafi established Revolutionary committees which kept tight control over internal dissent, making all dissent illegal by law in 1973. Engaging in political conversations with foreigners was made a crime punishable by three years in prison, and anyone who forms a political party can be executed. According to the Freedom of the Press Index, Libya under Gaddafi's rule was the most censored country in the Middle East and North Africa. 10 to 20 percent of Libyans reportedly worked in surveillance for these committees, with a proportion of informants on par with those in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Kim Jong-il's North Korea. The surveillance took place in the government, in factories, and in the education sector. The regime often executed dissidents through public hangings and mutilations and the executions were rebroadcast on state television channels.

From time to time Gaddafi responded to external opposition with violence. Gaddafi employed his network of diplomats and recruits to assassinate dozens of critics around the world. Amnesty International listed at least 25 assassinations between 1980 and 1987 but a website, actively seeking his overthrow, listed 343 victims of murder and political assassination as of 2006. His revolutionary committees called for the assassination of Libyan dissidents living abroad in April 1980, sending Libyan hit squads abroad to murder them. On 26 April 1980 Gaddafi set a deadline of 11 June 1980 for dissidents to return home or be "in the hands of the revolutionary committees". Gaddafi stated explicitly in 1982 that "It is the Libyan people's responsibility to liquidate such scums who are distorting Libya's image abroad." Libyan agents have assassinated dissidents in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. As of 2004 Libya still provided bounties on critics, including $1 million for one journalist.

Libyan legacy

The Economy of Libya is centrally planned and follows Gadaffi's socialist ideals. It depends primarily upon revenues from the petroleum sector, which contributes practically all export earnings and over half of its GDP. These oil revenues, combined with a small population, have given Libya the highest nominal GDP per capita in Africa. Since 2000 Libya has recorded favourable growth rates with an estimated 10.6 percent growth of GDP in 2010, the highest of any state in Africa.

Following a 1986 aborted attempt to replace English with Russian as the primary foreign language in education, English has been taught in recent years in Libyan schools from primary level, and students have access to English-language media; however, one protester in 2011 described the situation as: "None of us can speak English or French. He kept us ignorant and blindfolded."

Gaddafi described the Great Manmade River as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" and presented the project as a gift to the Third World. It is a network of pipes that supplies 6,500,000 cubic metres (230,000,000 cu ft) of fresh water per day from beneath the Sahara Desert, from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer, to northern cities, including Tripoli, Benghazi and Sirt. The project consists of more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 meters (1,600 ft) deep.

File:Libyan dinar one a.JPG

Libyan dinars printed in 2004 contain Gaddafi's image

Gaddafi ordered the Libyan National Telescope Project, costing nearly 10 million euros, expressing his passionate interest in astronomy. The robotic telescope was planned to be two metres in diameter and remote-controlled, to be built by France's REOSC, the optical department of the SAGEM Group. It is to be housed in an air-conditioned building, with a network of four weather stations deployed at a distance of 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) around it to warn of impending sandstorms that could damage its fragile optics. A desert site 2,200 meters (7,200 ft) above sea level near Kufra was chosen as the site, hosting North Africa's largest astronomical observatory.

The Libyan postal service, General Posts and Telecommunications Company (GPTC), has issued numerous stamps, souvenir sheets, postal stationery, booklets, etc. relating to Gaddafi. The first issue was released in 1975 and was a souvenir sheet celebrating the sixth anniversary of the September Revolution.

Pan-Arabism (1969–1998)

Main article: Nasserism

After Nasser's death on 28 September 1970, Gaddafi attempted to take up the mantle of the ideological leader of Arab nationalism. He remained displeased by the failures of Nasser's Six Day War, and united leaders from Arab nations to better coordinate future attacks on Israel. Beginning in 1972, Gaddafi granted financial support and military training to volunteers willing to support Palestinian terrorist groups against Israel. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Gaddafi sent one armored brigade, two fighter squadrons, and financial aid to Egypt.

Gaddafi, Algerian President Houari Boumediene, and Syrian President Assad attending the Summit in Libya in December 1977.

He discussed unification with new Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who distrusted Gaddafi's offer to allow him Presidency while Gaddafi would be defense minister. Gaddafi persuaded him to form a partial union, which he agreed to in 1972, but Gaddafi's hope of a "Federation of Arab Republics"—Libya, Egypt, and Syria—did not reach fruition as the three disagreed on merger conditions, though all did all adopt the same flag.

Lebanon

In August 1978 the Lebanese Shia leader Musa al-Sadr and two companions departed for Libya to meet with government officials. They were never heard from again. Musa al-Sadr had founded the Amal Movement, a centrist-Shia Lebanese resistance movement which later went on to oppose the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The rise of the Amal Movement annoyed the PLO, which was based primarily in south Lebanon. Libya consistently denied responsibility, claiming that al-Sadr and his companions left Libya for Italy. Some reports claimed that he remained secretly in jail in Libya. Al-Sadr's disappearance remained a major dispute between Lebanon and Libya. Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri claimed that the Libyan regime, and particularly the Libyan leader, was responsible for the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr. Iranian General Mansour Qadar, the then head of Syrian security, said that Rifaat al-Assad told the Iranian ambassador to Syria that Gaddafi was planning to kill al-Sadr. On 27 August 2008 Gaddafi was indicted in Lebanon for al-Sadr's disappearance.

Pacts with Morocco and Tunisia

In 1974 he signed an agreement with Tunisia's Habib Bourguiba for a merger between the two countries, but this also failed to work in practice and ultimately the differences between the two countries deteriorated into strong animosity. In 1984 he signed the Oujda treaty with Morocco's Hassan II, with the aim of the union of both countries centered in economic, cultural and political cooperation. It was also an instrument to end the support of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya from Morocco, with Libya ending its support of the Polisario Front. The treaty was broken by Hassan II in 1986 after the visit to Ifrane, Morocco, of the then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres; qualified by the Libyan government as "an act of treason".

Chad and Sudan

Main article: Islamic Legion

See also: Chadian–Libyan conflict and Toyota War

Gaddafi was firmly in support of the Islamization of Sudan and Chad. He opposed Chadian leader Tombalbaye, in large part because he was black and Christian, and Gaddafi granted military bases and support to the revolutionary force FROLINAT as early as 1969. In 1971 Gaddafi offered to merge Libya with Sudan, but Sudanese president Gaafar Nimeiry turned down the offer. Gaddafi became even more embittered when Nimeiry negotiated a peace settlement with the Sudanese Christians in 1972. Nimeiry said of Gaddafi: "He has a split personality—both parts evil."

Gaddafi waged a campaign against neighbouring Chad from 1969. Libya was also involved in a sometimes-violent territorial dispute with Chad over the Aouzou Strip, which Libya occupied in 1973. This dispute eventually led to a Libyan invasion and a conflict that ended in a 1987 ceasefire. The dispute was settled peacefully in June 1994 when Libya withdrew from Chad following a judgement of the International Court of Justice issued on 13 February 1994. In 1972 Gaddafi created the Islamic Legion, a paramilitary terrorist organization, to Arabize the region. The priority of the Legion was first Chad and then Sudan. Gaddafi sympathized with the Arab Gathering in Darfur, a similarly militant pan-Arabist organization. Because the two organizations shared members and a source of support, the distinction between the two is often ambiguous.

At the beginning of 1987 the Libyan offensive into Chad had the Islamic Legion maintaining a force of 2,000 in Darfur. The nearly continuous cross-border raids that resulted greatly contributed to a separate ethnic conflict within Darfur that killed about 9,000 people between 1985 and 1988. According to foreign journalists the Legion's members were mostly poor immigrants who had gone to Libya "hoping for a civilian job, but found themselves signed up more or less by force to go and fight in an unknown desert." They had been provided with inadequate military training and possessed little commitment. There was evidence that some of the legionnaires later became leaders in the Janjaweed, a group which carried out genocide in Sudan in the 2000s.

The Chad government, headed by president Hissène Habré, received extensive US and French help, which finally led to a Chadian victory in the so-called Toyota War. This 1987 war resulted in a heavy defeat for Libya which, according to American sources, lost one tenth of its army, with 7,500 troops killed and 1.5 billion dollars worth of military equipment destroyed or captured. Chadian losses were 1,000 troops killed.

Gaddafi turned his attention to pan-Africanism in 1998.

Egypt

Main article: Libyan–Egyptian War

Gaddafi dispatched military forces across the Libyan–Egyptian border in 1977 during the Libyan–Egyptian War, but Egyptian forces fought back and forced Gaddafi's forces to retreat.

Pan-Africanism (1998–present)

Main article: United States of Africa

In 1998, Gaddafi turned his attention away from Arab nationalism. He eliminated a government office in charge of promoting pan-Arab ideas and told reporters "I had been crying slogans of Arab Unity and brandishing standard of Arab nationalism for 40 years, but it was not realised. That means that I was talking in the desert. I have no more time to lose talking with Arabs...I am returning back to realism...I now talk about Pan-Africanism and African Unity. The Arab world is finished...Africa is a paradise...and it is full of natural resources like water, uranium, cobalt, iron, manganese." Gaddafi's state-run television networks switched from middle eastern soap operas to African themes involving slavery. The background of a unified Arab League that had been a staple of Libyan television for over two decades was replaced by a map of Africa, which Gaddafi sported on his outfits from then forward. He also stated that, "I would like Libya to become a black country. Hence, I recommend to Libyan men to marry only black women and to Libyan women to marry black men."

Gaddafi ran a school near Benghazi called the World Revolutionary Center (WRC), where he gave military training to foreign leaders who shared ideological similarities with him. Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso and Idriss Déby of Chad were graduates of this school, and are currently in power in their respective countries. Gaddafi trained and supported Charles Taylor of Liberia, Foday Sankoh, the founder of Revolutionary United Front, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the Emperor of the Central African Empire., and Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia. Gaddafi intervened militarily in the Central African Republic in 2001 to protect his ally Ange-Félix Patassé from overthrow. Patassé signed a deal giving Libya a 99-year lease to exploit all of that country's natural resources, including uranium, copper, diamonds, and oil. He also sent troops to fight against Tanzania on behalf of Idi Amin and lost 600 Libyan soldiers defending Amin's collapsing regime.

Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania, embraces Gaddafi during the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 2, 2009.

Gaddafi's support frequently went to leaders recognized by the United Nations as dictators and warlords. Gaddafi used anti-Western rhetoric against the UN, and complained that the International Criminal Court was a "new form of world terrorism" that wanted to recolonize developing countries. Gaddafi opposed the ICC's arrest warrant for Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir and personally gave refuge to Idi Amin in Libya after his fall from rule in 1979. According to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Charles Taylor's orders for "The amputation of the arms and legs of men, women, and children as part of a scorched-earth campaign was designed to take over the region’s rich diamond fields and was backed by Gaddafi, who routinely reviewed their progress and supplied weapons".

Gaddafi's support for different rulers and dictators across Africa cemented his reputation as a powerful African leader, and gained him several allies across the continent. He was bestowed the title of King of Kings of Africa in 2008 as part of a grassroots effort to encourage African heads of state and government to follow Gaddafi towards greater political integration. Gaddafi was celebrated in the presence of over 200 African traditional rulers and kings, although his views on African political and military unification received a lukewarm response from their governments. His 2009 forum for African kings was canceled by the Ugandan hosts, who believed that traditional rulers discussing politics would lead to instability. On 1 February 2009, a coronation ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was held to coincide with the 53rd African Union Summit, at which he was elected head of the African Union for the year. Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: "I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa."

Pariah state status

Gaddafi had close ties with two European right-wing heads of state, Slobodan Milošević and Jörg Haider, who were both anti-Islamic politicians. Jörg Haider of Austria was reported as having received tens of millions of dollars from both Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. Gaddafi also aligned himself with the Orthodox Serbs against Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, supporting Milošević even when he was charged with large-scale ethnic cleansing against Albanians in Kosovo.

Gaddafi developed a friendship with Hugo Chávez and in March 2009 a stadium was named after the Venezuelan leader. Documents seized during a 2008 raid on FARC showed that both Chavez and Gaddafi backed the group. Gaddafi developed an ongoing relationship with FARC, becoming acquainted with its leaders at meetings of revolutionary groups which were regularly hosted in Libya. In September 2009, at the Second Africa-South America Summit on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, Gaddafi joined Chávez in calling for an "anti-imperialist" front across Africa and Latin America. Gaddafi proposed the establishment of a South Atlantic Treaty Organization to rival NATO, saying: "The world’s powers want to continue to hold on to their power. Now we have to fight to build our own power."

Gaddafi also sought close relations with the Soviet Union and purchased arms from the Soviet bloc.

In 1995 Gaddafi expelled some 30,000 Palestinians living in Libya, a response to the peace negotiations that had commenced between Israel and the PLO.

File:Assad Qaddafi 1977.jpg

Gaddafi (right) with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1977

In October 1981 Egypt's president, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. Gaddafi applauded the murder and remarked that it was a punishment.

State-sponsored terrorism

See also: Foreign relations of Libya and Active measures

Gaddafi with Serbian President Boris Tadić

Gaddafi supported terrorist organizations that held anti-Western sympathies around the world. The Foreign Minister of Libya called the massacres "heroic acts". Gaddafi fueled a number of Islamist and communist terrorist groups in the Philippines, including the New People’s Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The country still struggles with their murders and kidnappings. In Indonesia the Organisasi Papua Merdeka was a Libyan backed militant group. Vanuatu's ruling party also enjoyed Libyan support. In Australia he attempted to radicalize Australian Aborigines, left-wing unions, Arab Australians, and one Labor Party politician, Bill Hartley, against the "imperialist" government of Australia. In New Zealand he financed the Workers Revolutionary Party and attempted to radicalize Maoris.

Gaddafi explicitly stated that he would kill Libyan dissidents that had escaped from Libya, raising tensions with refugee countries and European governments. In 1985 he stated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries supported anti-Gaddafi Libyans. In 1976, after a series of terrorist attacks by the Provisional IRA, Gaddafi announced that "the bombs which are convulsing Britain and breaking its spirit are the bombs of Libyan people. We have sent them to the Irish revolutionaries so that the British will pay the price for their past deeds". In April 1984 some Libyan refugees in London protested the execution of two dissidents. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman. The incident led to the cessation of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade. In June 1984 Gaddafi asserted that he wanted his agents to assassinate dissident refugees even when they were on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca and, in August that year, a Libyan plot in Mecca was thwarted by Saudi Arabian police.

A plot to assassinate Gaddafi, allegedly by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, occurred when rebels attacked Gaddafi's motorcade near the city of Sirte in February 1996. British involvement was denied by former foreign secretary Robin Cook and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office later stated: "We have never denied that we knew of plots against Gaddafi." On 5 April 1986 Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three and injuring 229. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by Western intelligence and more detailed information was retrieved some years later from Stasi archives. Libyan agents who had carried out the operation, from the Libyan embassy in East Germany, were prosecuted by the reunited Germany in the 1990s.

Reagan dubbed Gaddafi the "mad dog of the Middle East". In December 1981 the U.S. State Department invalidated US passports for travel to Libya and, in March 1982, the United States banned the import of Libyan oil.

In 1984 Gaddafi started plotting terrorist acts inside the United States. One of the leading groups receiving Gaddafi's money was the Nation of Islam. Al-Rakr, a Libyan-financed gang in Chicago, declared in 1984 that it was preparing for a "race war" to "settle scores with whites". Members of the gang were arrested in 1986 for planning to bomb government buildings and bring down American planes. In 1986 Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests.

1986 bombing of Libya

File:ScreenSHot Gadahfi airplae sculpture.JPG

Gaddafi's airplane sculpture

Main article: Bombing of Libya (1986)

Shortly after his inauguration in 1981, Libya was a strong priority for Ronald Reagan. Gaddafi was firmly anti-Israel and had supported extremist groups in Palestine and Syria. There were reports that Libya was attempting to become a nuclear power and his occupation of Chad, which was rich in uranium, was a major fear for the United States. Gaddafi's alignment with the Soviet Union and his ambitions to set up a federation of Arab and Muslim states in North Africa were also alarming to the US. Furthermore, then-Director of Central Intelligence and Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. wanted to take pro-active measures against Gaddafi because he had been using former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives to help set up terrorist camps.

On 14 April 1986 the United States carried out Operation El Dorado Canyon against Gaddafi and began bombing air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi. The "surgical strikes" failed to kill Gaddafi but did kill a few dozen military officers. Gaddafi then spread propaganda about how it had killed his "adopted daughter" and that the victims had been all civilians. The campaign was successful, as large portions of the Western press reported the regime's stories as facts. Gaddafi announced that he had won a spectacular military victory over the United States and the country was officially renamed the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah". However, his speech appeared devoid of passion and even the "victory" celebrations appeared unusual. Criticism of Gaddafi by ordinary Libyan citizens became more bold, such as defacing Gaddafi posters. The US raids brought the regime to its the weakest point in 17 years.

Partial rapprochement

After the fall of the Soviet Empire, Libya appeared to reassess its position in world affairs and began a long process of improving its image in the West. Gaddafi publicly condemned terrorism and, two years prior to the September 11 attacks, he pledged commitment to fighting al-Qaeda. He offered to open his weapons program to international inspection, but neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations pursued the offer at the time. Gaddafi denounced the al-Qaeda bombers for the 11 September attacks and appeared on American television for an interview with George Stephanopoulos.

UN cooperation in dismantling Libya's WMD program

Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces in 2003, Gaddafi announced that Libya had an active weapons of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. Then US president George W. Bush and other supporters of the Iraq War portrayed Gaddafi's announcement as a direct consequence of the Iraq War. Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, a supporter of the Iraq War, was quoted as saying that Gaddafi had privately phoned him and admitted as much. Many foreign policy experts contended that Gaddafi's announcement was merely a continuation of his prior attempts at normalizing relations with the West and getting the sanctions removed. To support this they point to the fact that Libya had already made similar offers starting four years before this one. The offer was accepted and international inspectors in Libya were led to chemical weaponry as well as an active nuclear weapons program. In 2004 inspectors from the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) verified that Libya had owned a stockpile of 23 metric tons of mustard gas and more than 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals. Disposing of such large quantities of chemical weapons was expected to be expensive.

In March 2004 the then British prime minister Tony Blair became one of the first Western leaders to visit Libya in decades and publicly meet Gaddafi. Blair praised Gaddafi's recent acts and stated that he hoped Libya could now be a strong ally in the international War on Terror. In the run-up to Blair's visit the British ambassador in Tripoli, Anthony Layden, explained Libya's and Gaddafi's political change:

35 years of total state control of the economy has left them in a situation where they're simply not generating enough economic activity to give employment to the young people who are streaming through their successful education system. I think this dilemma goes to the heart of Colonel Gaddafi's decision that he needed a radical change of direction.

In 2006, as Gaddafi's chemical weapons were being destroyed, Libya continued to improve its cooperation with international monitoring regimes. France accepted an agreement with Libya to develop a significant nuclear power program. In 2006 the U.S. State Department restored full diplomatic relations with Libya and removed Libya from its list of nations supporting terrorism. In September 2008 the then US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice became the first in her position to visit Libya since 1953 and was in talks with Gaddafi.

In June 2008 Gaddafi strongly criticised US presidential candidate Barack Obama for saying that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel, saying "The statements of our Kenyan brother of American nationality, Obama, on Jerusalem ... show that he either ignores international politics and did not study the Middle East conflict or that it is a campaign lie."

Compensation to victims of the Lockerbie bombings

For most of the 1990s Libya was under economic and diplomatic sanctions as a result of Gaddafi's refusal to allow the extradition to the United States, or Britain, of the two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded with wreckage landing on Lockerbie, Scotland. Through the intercession of South African president Nelson Mandela—who made a high-profile visit to Gaddafi in 1997—and united Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan, Gaddafi agreed to a compromise in 1999 that handed the defendants over to The Netherlands for trial under Scots law. UN sanctions were then suspended, but US sanctions against Libya remained in force.

After diplomatic negotiations were held through various countries' secret services, led by Stephen Kappes of the CIA and Sir Mark Allen of the British Secret Intelligence Service (commonly known as MI6), Libya wrote to the United Nations in August 2003 formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" in respect of the Lockerbie bombing, two years after Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction, and agreed to pay compensation of up to US$2.7 billion—or up to US$10 million each—to the families of the 270 victims. That same month Britain and Bulgaria co-sponsored a successful UN resolution to remove the suspended sanctions. Bulgaria's involvement in tabling this motion led to suggestions that there was a link with the HIV trial in Libya in which five Bulgarian nurses, working at a Benghazi hospital, were accused of infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV. Forty percent of the compensation was then paid to each family, and a further 40% followed once US sanctions were removed. Because the US government refused to take Libya off its list of state sponsors of terrorism, Libya retained the last 20% ($540 million) of the $2.7 billion compensation package. In October 2008 Libya paid $1.5 billion into a fund which will be used to pay: the remaining 20% compensation to the relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims; the American victims of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing; American victims of the 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing; and Libyan victims of the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. In exchange, president Bush signed Executive Order 13477 restoring the Libyan government's immunity from terrorism-related lawsuits and dismissing all of the pending compensation cases in the United States.

On 28 June 2007 al-Megrahi was granted the right to a second appeal against the Lockerbie bombing conviction. One month later the Bulgarian medics were released from jail in Libya. They returned home to Bulgaria and were pardoned by Bulgarian president, Georgi Parvanov.

Gaddafi with then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin in 2008

Gaddafi with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Gaddafi (at right) attending the G-8 Summit in 2008

Gaddafi's 2009 celebration of the return home of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was released from prison on compassionate grounds, attracted criticism from Western leaders.

Cooperation treaties with European nations

In July 2007 the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, visited Libya and signed a number of bilateral and multilateral European Union agreements with Gaddafi. Gaddafi and Vladimir Putin reportedly discussed establishing a Russian military base in Libya.

On 4 March 2008 Gaddafi announced his intention to dissolve the country's existing administrative structure and disburse oil revenue directly to the people. The plan included abolishing all ministries; except those of defence, internal security, and foreign affairs, and departments implementing strategic projects.

On 30 August 2008 Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a landmark cooperation treaty in Benghazi. Under its terms Italy agreed to pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation. In exchange Libya would take measures to combat illegal immigration coming from its shores and boost investments in Italian companies. The treaty was ratified by Italy on 6 February 2009 and by Libya on 2 March, during a Berlusconi visit to Tripoli. In June Gaddafi made his first visit to Rome, where he again met Berlusconi, president Giorgio Napolitano and senate president Renato Schifani. chamber president Gianfranco Fini cancelled the meeting because of Gaddafi's delay. The Democratic Party and Italy of Values opposed the visit and many protests were staged throughout Italy by human rights non-governmental organizations and Italian Radicals. Gaddafi also took part in the G8 summit in L'Aquila in July as Chairman of the African Union. During the summit a handshake between US president Barack Obama and Muammar Gaddafi marked the first time the Libyan leader had been greeted by a serving US president. Italian president Giorgio Napolitano hosted a dinner where Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister and G8 host, overturned protocol at the last moment by having Gaddafi sit next to him, just two places away from president Obama who was seated on Berlusconi's right-hand side. During a two-day visit to Italy in August 2010 Gaddafi upset his hosts by stating that Europe should convert to Islam. During a lecture to 200 young women, whom Gaddafi had paid a modeling agency to send, he urged the women to convert to Islam and according to one of them said "Islam should become the religion of all of Europe." Each woman received a copy of the Qur'an. Gaddafi, in a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera TV on 10 April 2006, said: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe–without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

UN General Assembly speech

In January 2009 Gaddafi contributed an editorial to The New York Times, suggesting that he was in favor of a single-state solution to the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts that moved beyond old conflicts and looked to a unified future of shared culture and mutual respect.

On 23 September 2009 Gaddafi addressed the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, his first visit to the United States. Gaddafi spoke for one hour and 36 minutes. A translation of the speech, courtesy of Jamahiriya News Agency (JANA) the official Libyan news agency, is available on the Internet. In his 94-minute speech Gaddafi spoke in favor of the preamble to the United Nations Charter, but rejected several provisions of the rest of the Charter and criticized the United Nations for failing to prevent 65 wars. He also invited the General Assembly to investigate the wars that the Security Council had not authorized, and for those responsible to be brought before the International Criminal Court. He also defended the Taliban and Somali Pirates, claimed that a foreign military was responsible for the H1N1 outbreak, accused Israel of assassinating John F. Kennedy, called for a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel, and referred to Barack Obama as "son of Africa". He criticized the UN Security Council (UNSC), calling it the "Terror Council", and claimed that it practised "security feudalism" in deference to those who had a protected seat.

Following Gaddafi's speech he failed to attend a special Security Council heads-of-state meeting on 24 September 2009, when a resolution calling for a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons passed unanimously. Gaddafi also demanded representation for the African Union. His appearance generated demonstrations both supporting him and denouncing him. A Libyan diplomat, Ali Treki, has just become president of the General Assembly for 2009–10.

Gaddafi preferred to reside in a tent when travelling. His plans to erect a tent in Central Park and one on Libyan government property in Englewood, New Jersey, during Gaddafi's stay at the UN were protested by community leaders and subsequently cancelled by Gaddafi. His tent was moved to an estate in Bedford belonging to Donald Trump, until the local government issued a work stop order claiming that the tent needed a permit and Trump told him to go elsewhere.

Gaddafi once characterized HIV as "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus". In the African Union summit in Maputo in July 2003 Gaddafi asserted "if you are straight you have nothing to fear from AIDS".

2011 civil war

Main article: 2011 Libyan civil war

On 17 February 2011 major political protests began in Libya against Gaddafi's government. During the following week these protests gained significantly in both momentum and size, despite stiff resistance from the Gaddafi regime. By late February the country appeared to be rapidly descending into chaos as a 'credible' death toll was reported to be approaching 1,000.

On 27 February the International Federation for Human Rights concluded: "Gaddafi is implementing a strategy of scorched earth. It is reasonable to fear that he has, in fact, decided to largely eliminate, wherever he still can, Libyan citizens who stood up against his regime and furthermore, to systematically and indiscriminately repress civilians. These acts can be characterized as crimes against humanity, as defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."

On 21 February 2011 Shaykh Yûsuf al-Qaradâwî talked about the 2011 Libyan civil war and issued a fatwa calling for the killing of Muammar Gaddafi: Gaddafi was reported to have imported foreign mercenaries to defend his regime and large areas of the country, particularly in eastern Libya, were reported to have fallen into the hands of anti-Gaddafi elements. According to other sources, "It is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars."

Former top officials, including Gaddafi's former "number two" man, interior minister general Abdul Fatah Younis, the former justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil (who became the head of the provisional government in Benghazi), and several key ambassadors and diplomats resigned their posts in protest over Gaddafi's heavy handed response to the demonstrators. Al-Abidi issued a plea to whatever military personnel may have felt some loyalty towards Gaddafi to "join the people in the intifada." He said, "many members" of the security forces had already defected, including those in the capital, Tripoli. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she considered Gaddafi's 22 February 2011 speech as the equivalent of "him declaring war on his own people".

People protesting against Gaddafi.

At the beginning of March 2011 Gaddafi returned from a hideout, relying on considerable amounts of Libyan and US cash that had apparently been stored in the capital.

See also: LSE Libya Links

In connection with the Libyan uprising, Gadaffi's attempts to influence public opinion in Europe and the United States came under increased scrutiny.

UN intervention

Further information: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970

On 17 March 2011 the UN declared a no fly zone in Libya, one of a series of measures intended to protect the civilian population of Libya. A NATO airstrike on 30 April killed Gaddafi's youngest son and three of his grandsons at his son's home in Tripoli, the Libyan government said. Regime officials said that Muammar Gaddafi and his wife were visiting the home when it was struck, but both were unharmed. Gaddafi son’s death comes one day after the Libyan leader appeared on state television calling for talks with NATO to end the airstrikes which have been hitting Tripoli and other Gaddafi strongholds since last month. Gaddafi suggested there was room for negotiation, but he vowed to stay in Libya. Western officials have been divided in recent weeks over whether Gaddafi is a legitimate military target under the United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized the air campaign. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that NATO was "not targeting Gaddafi specifically" but that his command-and-control facilities were legitimate targets—including a facility inside his sprawling Tripoli compound that was hit with airstrikes 25 April.

Gaddafi's influential Defense Minister resigned because he did not wish to order the shooting of Libyans. Gaddafi reportedly has jailed him.

The Khamis Brigade was an important asset for Gaddafi and killed rebelling civilians. It was led by Khamis Gaddafi, one of Gaddafi's sons who trained in Libya and Russia. The brigade was the military's best-equipped unit. Gaddafi also relied heavily on two generals from his own tribe, Sayed Qaddaf Eddam and Ahmed Qaddaf Eddam. Gaddafi was reportedly paying Ghanaian mercenaries as much as US$2,500 per day for their services, with advertisements for mercenaries appeared in Nigerian newspapers.

Reports from Libya confirmed the presence of Ukrainian and Serbian mercenaries. The Calcutta Telegraph reported that Serbian pilots were flying the planes that bombed protesting civilians because Libyan pilots refused to do so, and also claimed that a Libyan economist said that "Tripoli is surrounded with mercenaries ... We're being slaughtered here". Gaddafi had previously used Serbian fighters when he put down a civilian uprising in the 1990s.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that, in the middle of February, a Libyan transport plane visited a Belarussian military base that handled stockpiled weaponry and military equipment.

2011 UN human rights charges

The UN referred the massacres of unarmed civilians to the International Criminal Court. Among the crimes being investigated by the prosecution is whether Gaddafi purchased and authorized the use of Viagra-like drugs among soldiers for the purpose of raping women and instilling fear.

On 27 June 2011 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi, accusing him of crimes against humanity and of ordering attacks on civilians in Libya. Arrest warrants were also issued for his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi. The presiding judge, Sanji Monageng, stated that there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam were "criminally responsible as indirect co-perpetrators" for the murder of civilians. She added that they "conceived and orchestrated a plan to deter and quell by all means the civilian demonstrations" and that Senussi used his position to have attacks carried out. Libyan officials rejected the ICC's authority, saying that the ICC has "no legitimacy whatsoever" and that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".

Loss of international recognition

Issue of ICC arrest warrant

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and Abdullah al-Senussi, head of state security for charges concerning crimes against humanity on 27 June 2011. According to Matt Steinglass of The Financial Times the charges call for Gaddafi, and his two co-conspirators, to "stand trial for the murder and persecution of demonstrators by Libyan security forces since the uprising based in the country’s east that began in February." This makes him the second still-serving state-leader to have warrants issued against them, the first being Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

A Libyan government representative, justice minister Mohammed al-Qamoodi, responsed by saying that "The leader of the revolution and his son do not hold any official position in the Libyan government and therefore they have no connection to the claims of the ICC against them ..."

Russia and other countries, including Russia, China and Germany, abstained from voting in the UN and have not joined the NATO coalition, which has taken action in Libya by bombing the regime's forces. Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin special representative for Africa, speaking in an interview for Russian newspaper Izvestia, said that the "Kremlin accepted that Col Gaddafi [sic] had no political future and that his family would have to relinquish its vice-like grip on the Libyan economy." He also said that "It is quite possible to solve the situation without the colonel".

Recognition of the TNC

On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, more than 30 governments recognised the Transitional National Council (TNC) as the legitimate government of Libya.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said, "The United States views the Gaddafi regime as no longer having any legitimate authority in Libya ... And so I am announcing today that, until an interim authority is in place, the United States will recognize the TNC as the legitimate governing authority for Libya, and we will deal with it on that basis." Gaddafi responded to the announcement with a speech on Libyan national television, in which he said "Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet ... They are worthless".

Ideology

Main article: Political ideology of Muammar Gaddafi

File:Green book.jpg

Gaddafi's Green Book

In addition to The Green Book (1975), Gaddafi has authored other works, including Escape to Hell and Other Stories (1998) and "The One-State Solution", an op-ed piece which appeared in The New York Times in 2009.

Gaddafi is known for erratic statements, and commentators often express uncertainty about what is sarcasm and what is simply incoherent. Over the course of his four-decade rule, he accumulated a wide variety of eccentric and often contradictory statements.

Notwithstanding his claims of concern for his African roots, Gaddafi has often expressed an overt contempt for the Berbers, a non-Arab people of North Africa, and for their language, maintaining that the very existence of Berbers in North Africa is a myth created by colonialists. He adopted several measures forbidding the use of Berber, and often attacks this language in official speeches, with statements like: "If your mother transmits you this language, she nourishes you with the milk of the colonialist, she feeds you their poison" (1985).

Gaddafi defended the actions of Somalian pirates, "It is a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia’s water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is self defence... If they (Western nations) do not want to live with us fairly, it is our planet and they can go to [an]other planet."

Personal life and family

Gaddafi's second wife is Safia Farkash, née el-Brasai, a former nurse from Al Bayda. Gaddafi had eight biological children, seven of them sons.

Moatessem-Billal al-Gaddafi with Hillary Clinton, Treaty Room, Washington, DC, 21 April 2009

His eldest son, Muhammad al-Gaddafi, born to Gaddafi's first wife, runs the Libyan Olympic Committee. The next eldest son, by his second wife Safia, is Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was born in 1972. Saif serves as a politician in his father's government, including as a spokesperson during the 2011 uprising, and works as an architect. He runs a charity (GIFCA) which was involved in negotiating freedom for hostages taken by Islamic militants, especially in the Philippines. In 2006, after sharply criticizing his father's regime, Saif Al-Islam briefly left Libya—reportedly to take on a position in banking outside of the country. He returned soon afterwards and launched an environmentally-friendly initiative to teach children how to help clean up parts of Libya. He was also involved in the compensation negotiations with Italy and the United States.

The third eldest, Al-Saadi al-Gaddafi, married the daughter of a military commander. Saadi runs the Libyan Football Federation and was previously signed to play for various professional teams, including Italian Serie A team Perugia Calcio, although appearing only once in first team games.

The fourth, Hannibal Muammar al-Gaddafi, is a former employee of the General National Maritime Transport Company, a company that specialized in oil exports. He is most notable for his involvement in a series of violent incidents throughout Europe: in 2001 Hannibal attacked three Italian policemen with a fire extinguisher; in September 2004, he was briefly detained in Paris after driving a Porsche at 140 kilometres per hour (90 mph) in the wrong direction and through red lights down the Champs-Élysées while intoxicated; and in 2005, in Paris, he allegedly assaulted model and then-girlfriend Aline Skaf, who later filed an assault suit against him. He was fined and given a four month suspended prison sentence after this incident; on 15 July 2008 Hannibal and his wife were held for two days and charged with assaulting two of their staff in Geneva, Switzerland, and then released on bail on 17 July. The government of Libya subsequently boycotted Swiss products, reduced flights between Libya and Switzerland, stopped issuing visas to Swiss citizens, recalled diplomats from Bern, and forced all Swiss companies such as ABB and Nestlé to close their offices. The General National Maritime Transport Company, which owned a large refinery in Switzerland, halted oil shipments to Switzerland. Two Swiss businessmen who were in Libya at the time were denied permission to leave the country and held hostage for some time. At the 35th G8 summit in July 2009, Gaddafi labeled Switzerland a "world mafia" and called for the country to be split between France, Germany and Italy. In August 2009 Hannibal Gaddafi stated that if he had nuclear weapons he would "wipe Switzerland off the map".

Gaddafi's fifth son, Al-Mu'tasim-Billah al-Gaddafi, is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Libyan Army. He later served as Libya's National Security Advisor, in which capacity he oversaw the nation's National Security Council. Saif Al-Islam and Moatessem-Billah were both seen as possible successors to their father.Gaddafi's sixth son was Saif al-Arab al-Gaddafi (known as "The sword of the Arabs"). Saif was appointed a military commander in the Libyan Army during the 2011 Libyan uprising. Saif al-Arab and three of Gaddafi's grandchildren were reported killed by a NATO bombing in April 2011. Like the death of Hanna, this is disputed by the organizations alleged to be responsible. Gaddafi's seventh son is Khamis al-Gaddafi, who serves as the commander of the Libyan Army's elite Khamis Brigade. Gaddafi's only natural daughter is Ayesha al-Gaddafi, a lawyer who joined the defense teams of executed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi. She is married to a cousin of her father's.

He is also said to have adopted two children, Hanna and Milad. Hanna was apparently killed in 1986 at the age of four, during the retaliatory US bombing raids; the facts are disputed however and this adoption may have been posthumous.

Gaddafi's brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, is believed to head military intelligence.

The family's main residence is on the Bab al-Azizia military barracks, located in the southern suburbs of Tripoli.

Gaddafi holds an honorary degree from Megatrend University in Belgrade, conferred on him by former Yugoslavian president Zoran Lilić.

Gaddafi fears flying over water and prefers to stay on the ground floors of buildings, almost never traveling without his trusted Ukrainian nurse Halyna Kolotnytska—a "voluptuous blonde" according to a US document released by WikiLeaks in late 2010. Halyna's daughter denied the suggestion that the relationship is anything but professional.

Family wealth

Italian companies had a strong foothold in Libya. Italy buys a quarter of Libya's oil and 15 per cent of its natural gas. The LIA owned significant shares in Italy's Eni oil corporation, Fiat, Unicredit bank, and Finmeccanica. In January 2002 Gaddafi purchased a 7.5% share of Italian football club Juventus for US$21 million, through the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company. This followed a long-standing association with Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli and car manufacturer Fiat.

On 25 February 2011 Britain's HM Treasury set up a specialised unit to trace Gaddafi's assets in Britain. Gaddafi allegedly worked for years with Swiss banks to launder international banking transactions.

Public relations

At the age of 27 Gaddafi, with a taste for safari suits and sunglasses, had sought to become the new "Che Guevara of the age". To accomplish this Gaddafi turned Libya into a haven for anti-Western radicals, where any group could supposedly receive weapons and financial assistance, provided they claimed to be fighting imperialism.

A Revolutionary Command Council was formed to rule the country, with Gaddafi as chairman. He added the title of prime minister in 1970, but gave up this title in 1972. Unlike some other military revolutionaries, Gaddafi did not promote himself to the rank of general upon seizing power, but rather accepted a ceremonial promotion from captain to colonel and remained at this rank. While at odds with Western military ranking, where a colonel would not rule a country or serve as commander-in-chief of its military, in Gaddafi's own words Libya's society is "ruled by the people", so he did not need a more grandiose title or supreme military rank. Former US president Ronald Reagan—who referred to Gaddafi as "the mad dog of the Middle East"—regarded Gaddafi as public enemy number one during his time in office.

Transliteration of his Arabic name

Because of the lack of standardization of transliterating written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in many different ways. Even though the Arabic spelling of a word does not change, the pronunciation may vary in different varieties of Arabic, which may suggest a different romanization. In Literary Arabic the name مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي can be pronounced /muˈʕammaru lqaðˈðaːfiː/. [ʕ] represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative (ع). Geminated consonants can be simplified. In Libyan Arabic, /q/ (ق) is replaced with [ɡ]; and /ð/ (ذ) (as "th" in "this") is replaced with [d]. Vowel [u] often alternates with [o] in pronunciation in other regions. Thus, /muˈʕammar alqaðˈðaːfiː/ is normally pronounced in Libyan Arabic [muˈʕæmmɑrˤ əlɡædˈdæːfi]. The definite article al- (ال) is often omitted.

"Muammar Gaddafi" is the spelling used by TIME, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera. The Associated Press, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News use "Moammar Gadhafi". The Library of Congress uses "Qaddafi, Muammar" as the primary name. The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses "Mu'ammar Qaddafi" and the U.S. Department of State uses "Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi", although the White House chooses to use "Muammar el-Qaddafi". The Xinhua News Agency uses "Muammar Khaddafi" in its English reports. The New York Times uses "Muammar el-Qaddafi". The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times of the Tribune Company, and Agence France-Presse use "Moammar Kadafi".

In 1986 Gaddafi reportedly responded to a Minnesota school's letter in English using the spelling "Moammar El-Gadhafi". The title of the homepage of algathafi.org reads "Welcome to the official site of Muammar Al Gathafi".

An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of his name, while a 1986 column by The Straight Dope quotes a list of 32 spellings known from the Library of Congress. ABC identified 112 possible spellings. This extensive confusion of naming was used as the subject of a segment of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update on 12 December 1981.

In short, the alternative spellings for each part of his name are shown in brackets:

${\color {OliveGreen}M{\begin{cases}u\\o\end{cases}}{\begin{cases}\varnothing \\'\end{cases}}a{\begin{cases}mm\\m\end{cases}}ar}~~~~{\color {MidnightBlue}{\begin{cases}Al\\El\\\varnothing \end{cases}}{\begin{cases}-\\\mathrm {\textvisiblespace} \\\varnothing \end{cases}}}{\color {RedViolet}{\begin{cases}Q\\G\\K\\Kh\end{cases}}a{\begin{cases}d\\dh\\dd\\dhdh\\th\\zz\end{cases}}af{\begin{cases}i\\y\end{cases}}}$

Not all are possible, as some alternatives are most probably combined with others, or even impossible with others (for example, simplification of geminated /mm/ usually implies simplification of /aː/).

See also

• Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights
• Amazonian Guard
• HIV trial in Libya
• Libya Gate
• List of current heads of state and government
• List of longest ruling non-royal leaders

Notes

• Azevedo, Mario J. (1998). Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad. Routledge. ISBN 90-5699-582-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Brecher, Michael & Wilkenfeld, Jonathan (1997). A Study in Crisis. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-4721-0806-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Clayton, Anthony (1998). Frontiersmen: Warfare in Africa Since 1950. Routledge. ISBN 1-8572-8525-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Collelo, Thomas (1990). Chad. US GPO. ISBN 0-1602-4770-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Metz, Helen Chapin (2004). Libya. US GPO. ISBN 1-4191-3012-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ngansop, Guy Jeremie (1986). Tchad, vingt d'ans de crise. L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-85802-687-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Template:Fr icon
• Nolutshungu, Sam C. (1995). Limits of Anarchy: Intervention and State Formation in Chad. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-1628-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pollack, Kenneth M. (2002). Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-3733-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Simons, Geoff (2004). Libya and the West: From Independence to Lockerbie. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-8606-4988-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Davis, Brian Lee (1990). Qaddafi, terrorism, andthe origins of the U.S. attack on Libya. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0275933024. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Official personal website
• Muammar Gaddafi at IMDb
• Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
• Template:CNNtopic
• Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
• Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Template:WSJtopic
• Template:Worldcat id
• Template:Nndb

Articles

• The NS Profile: Muammar al-Gaddafi, Sholto Byrnes, New Statesman, 27 August 2009
• Libya's Last Bedouin, Rudolph Chimelli, Qantara.de, 2 September 2009
• The Muammar Gaddafi Story, Martin Asser, BBC News, 25 March 2011
• Gaddafi: The Last Supervillain?, slideshow by Life magazine
• Gaddafi's 40th Anniversary, slideshow by The First Post
• Muammar Gaddafi: a life in pictures The Guardian
• Gaddafi: From Popular Hero to Isolated Dictator, The Real News (video)

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