Moammar gadhafi biography

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Profile: Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi is clinging to power in Libya amid violence and unrest, and the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity. The BBC's Aidan Lewis profiles the Libyan leader.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world, having ruled Libya since he toppled King Idris I in a bloodless coup at the age of 27.

Known for his flamboyant dress-sense and gun-toting female body guards, the Libyan leader is also considered a skilled political operator who moved swiftly to bring his country out of diplomatic isolation.

It was in 2003 - after some two decades of pariah status - that Tripoli took responsibility for the bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, paving the way for the UN to lift sanctions.

Months later, Col Gadaffi's regime abandoned efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, triggering a fuller rapprochement with the West

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Moammar Gadhafi was an Army Colonel in 1969 when he lead a bloodless coup and overthrew Libya's king. For the past 42-years, Gadhafi has ruled the oil-rich North African country. While he had no official government function, he has ruled the country of 6.4 million people with an iron fist and is one of the world's longest-serving dictators. To the Western world, Gadhafi is known as a principal backer of international terror, using Libya's vast oil wealth to provide funds and training camps. The leader has been tied to high kontur international terrorists' attacks in Berlin, Germany and Lockerbie, Scotland. Gadhafi has appeared on the PBS NewsHour twice, first in 1981 when he defend his actions and scolded Washington after President Reagan expelled Libyan diplomats from the United States. There are reports out of Libya that Gadhafi has been killed in a rebel takeover of his hometown, Sirte. Quotes "Moammar Gadhafi is the glory. If I had a position, if I were a president, inom would h

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The Muammar Gaddafi story

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 planerat arbete , external, a massive endeavour inspired, perhaps, by ancient Bedouin vatten 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.

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