MUAMMAR GADDAFI WITH HIS WIFE, AND THREE OF THEIR SONS WHO ARE ALL DEAD NOW. IN THE PHOTO, ONLY GADDAFI’S WIFE, SAFIA FARKASH WHO CURRENTLY LIVES IN EXILE IN CAIRO, EGYPT, IS STILL ALIVE.
◾SAIF AL-ISLAM born in 1972 and assass!nated last week. At the height of his father’s rule, he was seen as a reformer by the West when he started putting pressure on his father on civil rights. In 2005, he also pushed his father to allow human rights organisation to assess the situation in LIBYA and forced him to release prisoners.
◾However, when the revolution broke out in 2011, SAIF found himself torn between supporting his father or continuing his reform agenda by backing the so-called revolutionists. But he chose family loyalty and decided to fight for his father. For this reason, the West cut him off. When an ABC reporter asked him whether he would consider going to exile, he replied, “We live here, we fight here, we die. This is our country.” He rejected an asylum offer by TURKISH president.
◾He rallied government forces in BANI WALID until the town fell to the rebels. After leaving BANI WALID, his convoy was hit by a NATO air ättäck at WADI ZAMZAM, where he lost two of his fingers, 26 of his supporters and 9 military vehicles. He was captured by the rebels near SABHA after one local betrayed him. After his capture, he defiantly told the rebels to shoot him in the head so that he could die on the spot, but they refused and airlifted him to custody in ZINTAN. With time, his captors became sympathetic to him and released him.
◾He was assass!nated because of the political threat he posed to the government in TRIPOLI and the East. It was feared that those who had already started seeing the revolution as a scam were rallying behind him.
◾Lieutenant-Colonel KHAMIS GADDAFI born in 1983 and assass!nated by NATO in 2011. He was the commander of the most well-trained and well-equipped force in the LIBYAN military, known as the KHAMIS Brigade.
◾He was competent, very loyal to his father, and maintained good relations with his siblings. In early 2011, KHAMIS was working as an intern at AECOM Technology Corporation in Dallas, TEXAS, when the revolution broke out. He hurried back to LIBYA to aid his father, commanding the assault on ZAWIYA. The battle resulted in PRO-GADDAFI forces retaking the city.
◾He was k!lled on 29 August 2011, when a NATO Apache helicopter opened fire on his Toyota Land Cruiser, as he was commanding government forces on the battlefield.
◾MUTASSIM GADDAFI was k!lled on 20 October 2011. He was very rebellious and was once accused of plotting to overthrow his father in the early 2000s using his well equipped military unit known as MUTASSIM’s 77th Tank Battalion. He fled to exile in EGYPT, where he remained for a couple of years. During his exile, his father ordered the disbandment of his 77th Tank Battalion and created the KHAMIS Brigade, commanded by his little brother KHAMIS.
◾He returned from exile in 2005 and reconciled with his father, who appointed him as National Security Advisor of LIBYA. When the war broke out, he commanded government forces in support of his father by leading the defence of the city of SIRTE. As the war intensified he had a private bitter exchange with his brother SAIF AL-ISLAM, for causing their family’s downfall, because of the reforms he had forced his father to introduce in the government and for opening up LIBYA to International Human Rights Organisations.
◾MUTASSIM was captured while trying to flee SIRTE after his forces became overwhelmed by NATO bombardment and the rebels’ firepower. He was shot in the throat when he started arguing with them about religion. He then asked for a cigarette and water, but moments later, he was seen lying dead with a wound in his abdomen, and one of his arms dislocated. Amateur photographs and videos showed his young captors and others defiling his corpse after his death.
REST IN POWER, CHAMPIONS!!!