At the end of March, a NATO coalition began to provide support for the rebel forces in the form of airstrikes and a no-fly zone. NATO's military intervention over the next six months proved to be decisive. When Tripoli fell to rebel forces in late August, it was seen as a major victory for the opposition and a symbolic end for Qaddafi's rule. In June , the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Qaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law for crimes against humanity.
Qaddafi had lost control of Libya, but his whereabouts were still unknown. On October 20, , Libyan officials announced that Qaddafi had died near his hometown of Sirte, Libya. Early reports had conflicting accounts of his death, with some stating that he had been killed in a gun battle and others claiming that he had been targeted by a NATO aerial attack.
Video circulated of Qaddafi's bloodied body being dragged around by fighters. For months, Qaddafi and his family had been at large, believed to be hiding in the western part of the country where they still had small pockets of support. As news of the former dictator's death spread, Libyans poured into the streets, celebrating the what many hailed as the culmination of their revolution. Post Qaddafi, Libya has continued to be embroiled in violence. With state authority eventually being held by the General National Congress, various militia groups have vied for power.
Dozens of political figures and activists in Benghazi have been killed, with many having to leave the area. The country has also seen a succession of interim prime ministers.
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She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister. Muammar al-Qaddafi seized control of the Libyan government in and ruled as an authoritarian dictator for more than 40 years before he was overthrown in Olivia Rodrigo —. Megan Thee Stallion —.
Distaste about the alleged architect of Lockerbie's readmission into the world leaders' club lingered in many circles, not least among the US victims' families and their supporters. But that did not stop business deals being struck with a succession of western defence manufacturers and oil firms. Ironically, it was on the Arab front that Gaddafi kept his black sheep status alive. Throughout the s, the normally staid proceedings of annual summits of the Arab League were almost guaranteed to be disrupted by the Libyan leader's antics, whether it was lighting up a cigarette and blowing smoke into the face of his neighbour, or tossing insults at Gulf rulers and the Palestinians, or declaring himself "king of kings of Africa".
The UN has also witnessed the colonel's eccentricity. At the General Assembly, he gave a rambling speech more than an hour-and-a-quarter longer than his allocated minute time slot, tearing out and screwing up pages from the UN Charter as he spoke.
When the winds of revolt started to blow through the Arab world from Tunisia in December , Libya was not at the top of most people's list of "who's next".
Gaddafi fitted the bill as an authoritarian ruler who had endured for more years than the vast majority of his citizens could remember. But he was not so widely perceived as a western lackey as other Arab leaders, accused of putting outside interests before the interests of their own people. He had redistributed wealth - although the enrichment of his own family from oil revenues and other deals was hard to ignore and redistribution was undertaken more in the spirit of buying loyalty than promoting equality.
He sponsored grand public works, such as the improbable Great Man-Made River project , a massive endeavour inspired, perhaps, by ancient Bedouin water procurement techniques, that brought sweet, fresh water from aquifers in the south to the arid north of his country.
There was even something of a Tripoli Spring, with long-term exiles given to understand that they could return without facing persecution or jail. When the first calls for a Libyan "day of rage" were circulated, Gaddafi pledged - apparently in all seriousness - to protest with the people, in keeping with his myth of being the "brother leader of the revolution" who had long ago relinquished power to the people.
As it turned out, the scent of freedom and the draw of possibly toppling the colonel, just as Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali had been toppled, was too strong to resist among parts of the Libyan population, especially in the east.
Some of the first footage of rebellion to come out of Benghazi showed incensed young Libyans outside an official building smashing up a green monolith representing the spurious liberation doctrine that had kept them enslaved since the s - the Green Book. As the uprising spread, and the seriousness of the threat to his rule became apparent, Gaddafi showed he had lost none of the ruthlessness directed against dissidents and exiles in the s and s.
This time it was turned on whole towns and cities where people had dared to tear down his posters and call for his downfall. Regular troops and mercenaries nearly overwhelmed the rag-tag rebels, consisting of military deserters and ill-trained militiamen brought together under the banner of the National Transitional Council NTC. The colonel could afford to dismiss them as wayward year-olds, "given pills at night, hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe".
The intervention of Nato on the rebels' side in March, authorised by a UN resolution calling for the protection of civilians, prevented their seemingly imminent annihilation - but it was months before they could turn the situation to their advantage. Then came the fall of Tripoli and Gaddafi went into hiding, still claiming his people were behind him and promising success against the "occupiers" and "collaborators".
His dictatorial regime had finally crumbled, but many feared that he might remain at large to orchestrate an insurgency. He met his ignominious and grisly end, when NTC forces found him hiding in a tunnel following a Nato air strike on his convoy as he tried to make a break from his last stronghold, the city of Sirte, where it had all begun. The exact circumstances of his death remain in dispute, either "killed in crossfire", summarily executed, or lynched and dragged through the streets by jubilant, battle-hardened fighters.
Though it meant the Libyan people - and other victims around the world - were robbed of proper justice, the news sparked wild celebrations across his former domain that nearly 42 years of rule and misrule had truly come to a close. Early promise. Political theorist. The U. He also declined to surrender a group of Libyans suspected in the bombing of a French passenger jet over Niger that killed people. Subsequently, in , the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Libya. Qaddafi's government had turned over the Lockerbie suspects in ; one was eventually acquitted and the other convicted.
Also in , Qaddafi agreed to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction. Diplomatic relations with the West were restored by the following year. Qaddafi remained a deeply controversial figure, who traveled with a contingent of female bodyguards, wore colorful robes and hats or military uniforms covered with medals, and on trips abroad set up a Bedouin-style tent to receive guests.
After more than 40 years in power, Qaddafi saw his regime begin to unravel in February , when anti-government protests broke out in Libya following the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia earlier that year. Qaddafi vowed to crush the revolt and ordered a violent crackdown against the demonstrators. However, by August, rebel forces, with assistance from NATO, had gained control of Tripoli and established a transitional government. Qaddafi went into hiding, but on October 20, , he was captured and shot by rebel forces.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! It was the first American victory in the event since After advancing island by island across the Pacific Ocean, U. General Douglas MacArthur wades ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte, fulfilling his promise to return to the area he was forced to flee in Just over a year after the start of the Long March, Mao Zedong arrives in Shensi Province in northwest China with 4, survivors and sets up Chinese Communist headquarters.
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