42 Facts About Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

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

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

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

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

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

Colonel Muammar 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.

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

Colonel Muammar 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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 Muammar Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied.

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

In May 1987, Colonel Muammar 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 Muammar Gaddafi were foiled, and in turn, 1989 saw the security forces raid mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching.

In 1989, Colonel Muammar 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 Muammar 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.

In June 1999, Colonel Muammar 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 Muammar 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 Muammar Gaddafi gave a speech urging Africa to reject foreign aid.

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

In September 2001, Colonel Muammar 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.

In 2004, Colonel Muammar 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.

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

In Spring 2010, Colonel Muammar 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 Muammar Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for wide-scale privatization in a March 2003 speech; he promised that Libya would join the World Trade Organization.

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