Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي) (June 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi (مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī ) or Colonel Gaddafi, nicknamed Brother Leader of the Revolution and King of the Kings of Africa by his people was the de facto leader of Libya from the Green Revolution in 1969 until he was murdered by Zionist and US-backed insurgents of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization in 2011. Gaddafi speculated that the Revolution had been caused by Zionist insurrectionists who had spiked Libyans' coffee with LSD as part of a conspiracy to destroy Libya's air-conditioners.

Gaddafi gained power in the so-called Green Revolution in 1969. He ousted the Libyan monarchy and etablished a brand new type of government called Jamahiriya. He started a massive modernization program of Libya, and under Gaddafi's rule Libya had the highest living standards in Africa and Libya was debt-free. Gaddafi was a socialist, yet opposed to both communism and social democracy. He adopted his own kind of socialism, also including influences of Arab nationalism and Islam. Though Gaddafi blended Islamic influences into his politics, he wasn't an Islamist, and he was progressive in protecting religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims living in Libya.

During his rule, he wanted to have close contact to his people, and therefore never used any formal titles. He did support a lot of international liberation movements, and, as a result of that, was disliked by the US government. Gaddafi is known for his Green Book.

Gaddafi's quite secular and left-leaning type of government was disliked by Islamic fundamentalists such as the al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. In February 2011, al-Qaeda terrorists, mostly from Algeria and Chad, raised an uprising against his government, leading to the brutal Libyan civil war. As a result of that, the United States and NATO decided to use this situation as an argument for attacking Libya to get access to Libya's oil resources. In March 2011, a NATO coalition started brutally bombing Libya, and thousands of Libyan civilians were killed in this bombing. At October 20, Gaddafi was killed in his home city, Sirte, by al-Qaeda terrorists.