Synopsis

Muammar al-Qaddafi was born in a Bedouin tent in 1942. He joined the military and staged a coup to seize control of Libya in 1969, ousting King Idris. Though his Arab nationalist rhetoric and socialist-style policies gained him support in the early days of his rule, his corruption, military interference in Africa, and record of human rights abuses turned much of the Libyan population against him. Accused of supporting terrorism,

in the last decade of his rule Qaddafi reached a rapprochement with Western leaders, and Libya became a key provider of oil to Europe. During the "Arab Spring" of 2011, NATO troops supported dissidents attempting to overthrow Qaddafi's government. After months on the run, on October 20, 2011, Qaddafi was killed in his hometown of Surt....

Early Life

Muammar al-Qaddafi was born in 1942 in the town of Surt, in western Libya. Raised in a Bedouin tent in the Libyan desert, he came from a tribal family called the al-Qadhafah. At the time of his birth, Libya was an Italian colony. In 1951, Libya gained independence under the Western-allied King Idris.  As a young man Qaddafi was influenced by the Arab nationalist movement, and admired Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1961 he entered the military college in the city of Benghazi. He spent four months recieving military training in the United Kingdom. After graduating, Qaddafi steadily rose through the ranks of the military.  As disaffection with King Idris grew, Qaddafi became involved with a movement of young officers to overthrow the king. A talented and charismatic man, Qaddafi political opposition movement.  On September 1, 1969, King Idris was overthrown while he was abroad in Turkey for medical treatment.  He was named commander in chief of the armed forces and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Libya's new ruling body. At age 27, Qaddafi had become the ruler of Libya.

Taking Control of Libya

Qaddafi's first order of business was to shut down the American and British military bases in Libya. He also demanded that foreign oil companies in Libya share a bigger portion of revenue with the country. Qaddafi replaced the Gregorian calendar with the Islamic one, and forbid the sale of alcohol.

Feeling threatened by a failed coup attempt by his fellow officers in December 1969, Qaddafi put in laws criminalizing political dissent. In 1970, he expelled the remaining Italians from Libya, and emphasized what he saw as the battle between Arab nationalism and western imperialism.  He vocally opposed Zionism and Israel, and expelled the Jewish community from Libya. Qaddafi's inner circle of trusted people became smaller and smaller, as power was shared by himself and a small group of family and friends. His intelligence agents traveled around the world to intimidate and assassinate Libyans living in exile.

In these early days, Qaddafi sought to orient Libya away from the West, and towards the Middle East and Africa. He involved the Libyan military in several foreign conflicts, including in Egypt and Sudan, and the bloody civil war in Chad. In 1974, Qaddafi published the Green Book, an explanation of his political philosophy. The book describes the problems with liberal democracy and capitalism, and promotes Qaddafi's policies as the remedy. Qaddafi claimed that Libya boasted popular committees and shared ownership, but in reality this was far from true. Qaddafi had appointed himself or close family and friends to all positions of power, and their corruption and crackdowns on any kind of civic organizing meant much of the population lived in poverty. Meanwhile, Qaddafi and those close to him were amassing fortunes in oil revenue.

International Notoriety

Qaddafi's ruling style was not just repressive, it was eccentric. He had a cadre of female bodyguards, considered himself the king of Africa, erected a tent to stay in when he traveled abroad, and dressed in strange costume-like outfits. His bizzare antics often distracted from his brutality, and  earned him the nickname "the mad dog of the Middle East."

In addition to his oppressive rule at home, Qaddafi was despised by much of the international community. His government was implicated in the financing many anti-western groups, including some terror plots. The Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and the Irish Republican Army all allegedly had links to Qaddafi. Because of Libya's links to Irish terrorism, the United Kingdom cut off diplomatic relations with Libya for more than a decade. In the most famous instance, Libya was implicated in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. A plane carrying 270 people blew up near Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. In 1988, U.S. warplanes carried out bombings in Libya, in a failed attempt to kill Qaddafi.