145 Facts About Colonel Gaddafi

Colonel Gaddafi was the de facto leader of Libya from 1969 to 2011, first as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.

Colonel Gaddafi nationalized the oil industry and used the increasing state revenues to bolster the military, fund foreign revolutionaries, and implement social programs emphasizing house-building, healthcare and education projects.

Colonel Gaddafi outlined his Third International Theory that year in The Green Book.

Colonel Gaddafi transformed Libya into a new socialist state called a Jamahiriya in 1977.

Colonel Gaddafi officially adopted a symbolic role in governance but remained head of both the military and the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing dissent.

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From 1999, Colonel Gaddafi shunned pan-Arabism, and encouraged pan-Africanism and rapprochement with Western nations; he was Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010.

Colonel Gaddafi's government was overthrown; he retreated to Sirte, only to be captured and killed by NTC militants.

Highly divisive figure, Colonel Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality.

Colonel Gaddafi was decorated with various awards and praised for his anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab—and then African—unity, as well as for significant development to the country following the discovery of oil reserves.

Colonel Gaddafi's family came from a small, relatively uninfluential tribe called the Qadhadhfa, who were Arab in heritage.

Colonel Gaddafi's mother was named Aisha bin Niran, and his father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar ; the latter earned a meagre subsistence as a goat and camel herder.

Colonel Gaddafi had three older sisters and is the only son of his parents.

Colonel Gaddafi's upbringing in Bedouin culture influenced his personal tastes for the rest of his life; he preferred the desert over the city and would retreat there to meditate.

From childhood, Colonel Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonial powers in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of the Second World War it witnessed conflict between Italian and British forces.

At school, Colonel Gaddafi was bullied for being a Bedouin, but was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children.

Colonel Gaddafi was popular at this school; some friends made there received significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend, Abdul Salam Jalloud.

Many teachers at Sabha were Egyptian, and for the first time, Colonel Gaddafi had access to pan-Arab newspapers and radio broadcasts, especially the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs.

Colonel Gaddafi admired the political changes implemented in the Arab Republic of Egypt under his hero, President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Colonel Gaddafi was influenced by Nasser's book, Philosophy of the Revolution, which outlined how to initiate a coup.

Colonel Gaddafi read voraciously on the subjects of Nasser and the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the works of the Syrian political theorist Michel Aflaq and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Sun Yat-sen, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Colonel Gaddafi briefly studied history at the University of Libya in Benghazi before dropping out to join the military.

The armed forces offered the only opportunity for upward social mobility for underprivileged Libyans, and Colonel Gaddafi recognized it as a potential instrument of political change.

Under Idris, Libya's armed forces were trained by the British military; this angered Colonel Gaddafi, who viewed the British as imperialists, and accordingly, he refused to learn English and was rude to the British officers, ultimately failing his exams.

Colonel Gaddafi travelled around Libya collecting intelligence and developing connections with sympathizers, but the government's intelligence services ignored him, considering him little threat.

The Bovington signal course's director reported that Colonel Gaddafi successfully overcame problems learning English, displaying a firm command of voice procedure.

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Colonel Gaddafi disliked England, claiming British Army officers had racially insulted him and finding it difficult adjusting to the country's culture; asserting his Arab identity in London, he walked around Piccadilly wearing traditional Libyan robes.

Colonel Gaddafi later related that while he travelled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home "more confident and proud of our values, ideals and social character".

Once Colonel Gaddafi removed the monarchical government, he announced the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic.

Colonel Gaddafi insisted that the Free Officers' coup represented a revolution, marking the start of widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libya.

Colonel Gaddafi proclaimed that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity", and over the coming years implemented measures to achieve this.

Lieutenant Gaddafi became RCC chairman, and therefore the de facto head of state, appointing himself to the rank of colonel and becoming commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Colonel Gaddafi remained the government's public face, with the identities of the other RCC members only being publicly revealed on 10 January 1970.

In September 1971, Colonel Gaddafi resigned, claiming to be dissatisfied with the pace of reform, but returned to his position within a month.

Colonel Gaddafi wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform.

In 1971, Colonel Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation.

Colonel Gaddafi's regime opened up a wide range of educational and employment opportunities for women, although these primarily benefited a minority in the urban middle-classes.

Colonel Gaddafi propounded pan-Arab ideas, proclaiming the need for a single Arab state stretching across North Africa and the Middle East.

Such attempts to form a working relationship with the RCC failed; Colonel Gaddafi was determined to reassert national sovereignty and expunge what he described as foreign colonial and imperialist influences.

Colonel Gaddafi was especially critical of the US due to its support of Israel, and sided with the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, viewing the 1948 creation of the State of Israel as a Western colonial occupation forced upon the Arab world.

Colonel Gaddafi believed that Palestinian violence against Israeli and Western targets was the justified response of an oppressed people who were fighting against the colonization of their homeland.

In June 1972 Colonel Gaddafi created the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train anti-Israeli guerrillas.

Colonel Gaddafi funded the Black September Organization whose members perpetrated the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in West Germany and had the killed militants' bodies flown to Libya for a hero's funeral.

Colonel Gaddafi was indiscriminate in the causes which he funded, sometimes switching from supporting one side in a conflict to the other, as in the Eritrean War of Independence.

On 16 April 1973, Colonel Gaddafi proclaimed the start of a "Popular Revolution" in a speech at Zuwarah.

Colonel Gaddafi initiated this with a five-point plan, the first point of which dissolved all existing laws, to be replaced by revolutionary enactments.

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The second point proclaimed that all opponents of the revolution had to be removed, while the third initiated an administrative revolution that Colonel Gaddafi proclaimed would remove all traces of bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie.

Colonel Gaddafi began to lecture on this new phase of the revolution in Libya, Egypt, and France.

Colonel Gaddafi hoped that the councils would mobilize the people behind the RCC, erode the power of the traditional leaders and the bureaucracy, and allow for a new legal system chosen by the people.

In June 1973, Colonel Gaddafi created a political ideology as a basis for the Popular Revolution: Third International Theory.

Colonel Gaddafi saw Islam as having a key role in this ideology, calling for an Islamic revival that returned to the origins of the Qur'an, rejecting scholarly interpretations and the Hadith; in doing so, he angered many Libyan clerics.

Colonel Gaddafi summarized Third International Theory in three short volumes published between 1975 and 1979, collectively known as The Green Book.

The second dealt with Colonel Gaddafi's beliefs regarding socialism, while the third explored social issues regarding the family and the tribe.

Meanwhile, in September 1975, Colonel Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilization, introducing objectives to improve the relationship between the Councils and the ASU.

In 1975, Colonel Gaddafi's government declared a state monopoly on foreign trade.

In September 1975, Colonel Gaddafi purged the army, arresting around 200 senior officers, and in October he founded the clandestine Office for the Security of the Revolution.

Dissent arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, who accused Colonel Gaddafi of moving towards Marxism and criticized his abolition of private property as being against the Islamic sunnah; these forces were then persecuted as anti-revolutionary, while all privately owned Islamic colleges and universities were shut down.

Colonel Gaddafi was infuriated that Egypt had not done more to prevent the incident, and in retaliation planned to destroy the Queen Elizabeth 2, a British ship chartered by American Jews to sail to Haifa for Israel's 25th anniversary.

Colonel Gaddafi ordered an Egyptian submarine to target the ship, but Sadat cancelled the order, fearing a military escalation.

Colonel Gaddafi was later infuriated when Egypt and Syria planned the Yom Kippur War against Israel without consulting him and was angered when Egypt conceded to peace talks rather than continuing the war.

Colonel Gaddafi became openly hostile to Egypt's leader, calling for Sadat's overthrow.

When Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry took Sadat's side, Colonel Gaddafi spoke out against him, encouraging the Sudan People's Liberation Army's attempt to overthrow Nimeiry.

Intent on propagating Islam, in 1973 Colonel Gaddafi founded the Islamic Call Society, which had opened 132 centres across Africa within a decade.

Colonel Gaddafi was keen on reducing Israeli influence within Africa, using financial incentives to successfully convince eight African states to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973.

Colonel Gaddafi sought to develop closer links in the Maghreb; in January 1974 Libya and Tunisia announced a political union, the Arab Islamic Republic.

Retaliating, Colonel Gaddafi sponsored anti-government militants in Tunisia into the 1980s.

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In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or with Colonel Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses.

Colonel Gaddafi became General Secretary of the GPC, although he stepped down from this position in early 1979 and appointed himself "Leader of the Revolution".

In other instances, Colonel Gaddafi pushed through laws without the GPC's support, such as when he desired to allow women into the armed forces.

Colonel Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions, and women's groups, were banned.

In recognition of the growing commercial relationship between Libya and the Soviets, Colonel Gaddafi was invited to visit Moscow in December 1976; there, he entered talks with Leonid Brezhnev.

In December 1978, Colonel Gaddafi stepped down as Secretary-General of the GPC, announcing his new focus on revolutionary rather than governmental activities; this was part of his new emphasis on separating the apparatus of the revolution from the government.

Colonel Gaddafi was frustrated by the slow pace of social reform on women's issues, and in 1979 launched a Revolutionary Women's Formation to replace the more gradualist Libyan General Women's Federation.

In February 1978, Colonel Gaddafi discovered that his head of military intelligence was plotting to kill him, and began to increasingly entrust security to his Qadhadfa tribe.

Libyan relations with Lebanon and Shi'ite communities across the world deteriorated due to the August 1978 disappearance of imam Musa al-Sadr when visiting Libya; the Lebanese accused Colonel Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied.

Colonel Gaddafi later came to regret his alliance with Amin, openly criticizing him as a "fascist" and a "show-off".

Colonel Gaddafi played up his commercial relationship with the Soviets, revisiting Moscow in 1981 and 1985, and threatening to join the Warsaw Pact.

Himself unharmed, two of Colonel Gaddafi's sons were injured, and he claimed that his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed, although her existence has since been questioned.

In May 1987, Colonel Gaddafi announced the start of the "Revolution within a Revolution", which began with reforms to industry and agriculture and saw the re-opening of small business.

Several assassination attempts against Colonel Gaddafi were foiled, and in turn, 1989 saw the security forces raid mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching.

In 1989, Colonel Gaddafi was overjoyed by the foundation of the Arab Maghreb Union, uniting Libya in an economic pact with Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, viewing it as beginnings of a new pan-Arab union.

When Colonel Gaddafi refused, citing the Montreal Convention, the United Nations imposed Resolution 748 in March 1992, initiating economic sanctions against Libya which had deep repercussions for the country's economy.

Privately, Colonel Gaddafi maintained that he knew nothing about who perpetrated the bombing and that Libya had nothing to do with it.

In June 1999, Colonel Gaddafi visited Mandela in South Africa, and the following month attended the OAU summit in Algiers, calling for greater political and economic integration across the continent and advocating the foundation of a United States of Africa.

Colonel Gaddafi became one of the founders of the African Union, initiated in July 2002 to replace the OAU; at the opening ceremonies, he called for African states to reject conditional aid from the developed world, a direct contrast to the message of South African President Thabo Mbeki.

In March 2008 in Uganda, Colonel Gaddafi gave a speech urging Africa to reject foreign aid.

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That same month, Colonel Gaddafi was elected as the chairperson of the African Union, a position he retained for one year.

In October 2010, Colonel Gaddafi apologized to African leaders for the historical enslavement of Africans by the Arab slave trade.

In September 2001, Colonel Gaddafi publicly condemned the September 11 attacks on the US by al-Qaeda, expressing sympathy with the victims and calling for Libyan involvement in the US-led War on Terror against militant Islamism.

Colonel Gaddafi's government continued suppressing domestic Islamism, at the same time as Gaddafi called for the wider application of sharia law.

In 2004, Colonel Gaddafi traveled to the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels—signifying improved relations between Libya and the EU—and the EU dropped its sanctions on Libya.

Colonel Gaddafi completed agreements with the Italian government that they would invest in various infrastructure projects as reparations for past Italian colonial policies in Libya.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave Libya an official apology in 2006, after which Colonel Gaddafi called him the "iron man" for his courage in doing so.

In Spring 2010, Colonel Gaddafi proclaimed jihad against Switzerland after Swiss police accused two of his family members of criminal activity in the country, resulting in the breakdown of bilateral relations.

Colonel Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for wide-scale privatization in a March 2003 speech; he promised that Libya would join the World Trade Organization.

Libya changed its stance on the WTO after the removal of Shukri Ghanem, with Colonel Gaddafi condemning the WTO as a neocolonial terrorist organisation, and urging African and Third World countries not to join it.

Colonel Gaddafi led a group who proposed the drafting of a new constitution, although it was never adopted.

Colonel Gaddafi suggested that Tunisia's people would be satisfied if Ben Ali introduced a Jamahiriyah system there.

Misrata militia took Colonel Gaddafi prisoner, causing serious injuries as they tried to apprehend him; the events were filmed on a mobile phone.

Colonel Gaddafi's semi-naked, lifeless body was then placed into an ambulance and taken to Misrata; upon arrival, he was found to be dead.

Around 140 Colonel Gaddafi loyalists were rounded up from the convoy; the corpses of 66 were later found at the nearby Mahari Hotel, victims of extrajudicial execution.

Colonel Gaddafi's corpse was placed in the freezer of a local market alongside the corpses of Yunis Jabr and Mutassim; the bodies were publicly displayed for four days, with Libyans from all over the country coming to view them.

Colonel Gaddafi regarded this system as a practical alternative to the then-dominant international models of Western capitalism and Marxism–Leninism.

Colonel Gaddafi laid out the principles of this Theory in the three volumes of The Green Book, in which he sought to "explain the structure of the ideal society".

Colonel Gaddafi called for the Arab world to regain its dignity and assert a major place on the world stage, blaming Arab backwardness on stagnation resulting from Ottoman rule, European colonialism and imperialism, and corrupt and repressive monarchies.

Colonel Gaddafi had international ambitions, wanting to export his revolutionary ideas throughout the world.

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Colonel Gaddafi saw his socialist Jamahiriyah as a model for the Arab, Islamic, and non-aligned worlds to follow, and in his speeches declared that his Third International Theory would eventually guide the entire planet.

Colonel Gaddafi nevertheless had minimal success in exporting the ideology outside of Libya.

Colonel Gaddafi believed in opposing Western imperialism and colonialism in the Arab world, including any Western expansionism through the form of Israel.

Colonel Gaddafi offered support to a broad range of political groups abroad that called themselves "anti-imperialist", especially those that set themselves in opposition to the United States.

Colonel Gaddafi believed that the state of Israel should not exist and that any Arab compromise with the Israeli government was a betrayal of the Arab people.

In large part due to their support of Israel, Colonel Gaddafi despised the United States, considering the country to be imperialist and lambasting it as "the embodiment of evil".

Colonel Gaddafi rallied against Jews in many of his speeches, with Blundy and Lycett claiming that his anti-Semitism was "almost Hitlerian".

Colonel Gaddafi rejected the secularist approach to Arab nationalism that had been pervasive in Syria, with his revolutionary movement placing a far stronger emphasis on Islam than previous Arab nationalist movements had done.

Colonel Gaddafi deemed Arabism and Islam to be inseparable, referring to them as "one and indivisible", and called on the Arab world's Christian minority to convert to Islam.

Colonel Gaddafi insisted that Islamic law should be the basis for the law of the state, blurring any distinction between the religious and secular realms.

Colonel Gaddafi desired unity across the Islamic world, and encouraged the propagation of the faith elsewhere; on a 2010 visit to Italy, he paid a modelling agency to find 200 young Italian women for a lecture he gave urging them to convert.

Colonel Gaddafi was driven by a sense of "divine mission", believing himself a conduit of God's will, and thought that he must achieve his goals "no matter what the cost".

Colonel Gaddafi was staunchly anti-Marxist, and in 1973 declared that "it is the duty of every Muslim to combat" Marxism because it promotes atheism.

Nevertheless, Blundy and Lycett noted that Colonel Gaddafi's socialism had a "curiously Marxist undertone", with political scientist Sami Hajjar arguing that Colonel Gaddafi's model of socialism offered a simplification of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's theories.

Colonel Gaddafi's friends described him to Bianco as a loyal and generous man.

Bearman noted that Colonel Gaddafi was emotionally volatile and had an impulsive temperament, with the CIA believing that the Libyan leader suffered from clinical depression.

Colonel Gaddafi described himself as a "simple revolutionary" and "pious Muslim" called upon by God to continue Nasser's work.

Colonel Gaddafi regarded himself as an intellectual; he was a fan of Beethoven and said his favourite novels were Uncle Tom's Cabin, Roots, and The Stranger.

Colonel Gaddafi favoured either a military uniform or traditional Libyan dress, tending to eschew Western-style suits.

Colonel Gaddafi's home and office at Azizia was a bunker designed by West German engineers, while the rest of his family lived in a large two-storey building.

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Colonel Gaddafi was preoccupied with his own security, regularly changing where he slept and sometimes grounding all other planes in Libya when he was flying.

Colonel Gaddafi made particular requests when travelling to foreign countries.

Colonel Gaddafi was notably confrontational in his approach to foreign powers and generally shunned Western ambassadors and diplomats, believing them to be spies.

Colonel Gaddafi hired several Ukrainian nurses to care for him; one described him as kind and considerate and was surprised that allegations of abuse had been made against him.

Colonel Gaddafi's was the daughter of General Khalid, a senior figure in King Idris's administration, and was from a middle-class background.

Colonel Gaddafi's second wife was Safia Farkash, nee el-Brasai, a former nurse from the Obeidat tribe born in Bayda.

Colonel Gaddafi adopted two children, Hana Gaddafi and Milad Gaddafi.

Colonel Gaddafi was a key member of Gaddafi's inner circle.

In private, Colonel Gaddafi often complained that he disliked this personality cult surrounding him, but that he tolerated it because the people of Libya adored him.

The cult served a political purpose, with Colonel Gaddafi helping to provide a central identity for the Libyan state.

Colonel Gaddafi enjoyed attending lengthy public sessions where people were invited to question him; these were often televised.

Colonel Gaddafi was typically late to public events, and would sometimes fail to arrive.

The biographer Daniel Kawczynski noted that Colonel Gaddafi was famed for his "lengthy, wandering" speeches, which typically involved criticizing Israel and the US.

Colonel Gaddafi claimed that his Jamahiriya was a "concrete utopia", and that he had been appointed by "popular assent", with some Islamic supporters believing that he exhibited barakah.

Colonel Gaddafi faced opposition from rival socialists such as Ba'athists and Marxists; during the Civil War, he was criticized by both left-of-centre and right-of-centre governments for overseeing human rights abuses.

Gaddafi's Libya was typically described by Western commentators as a police state, with many U S right-wingers believing that Gaddafi was a Marxist-Leninist in a close relationship with the Soviet Union.

Colonel Gaddafi's administration has been criticized by political opponents and groups like Amnesty International for the human rights abuses carried out by the country's security services.

Colonel Gaddafi himself was widely perceived as a terrorist, especially in the US and UK.

Contrastingly, former Cuban President Fidel Castro commented that in defying the rebels, Colonel Gaddafi would "enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations", while Venezuela's Hugo Chavez described him as "a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr".

Colonel Gaddafi was mourned as a hero by many across sub-Saharan Africa; The Daily Times of Nigeria for instance stated that while undeniably a dictator, Colonel Gaddafi was the most benevolent in a region that only knew dictatorship, and that he was "a great man that looked out for his people and made them the envy of all of Africa".

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