Saif al-Islam |Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Saif al-Islam |Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Saif al-Islam |Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Said al-Islam has played a large role in Libyan politics while never holding an official position within the state [AFP]

Described last year by the New York Times as "the Western-friendly face of Libya and symbol of its hopes for reform and openness," Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 38, is a fluent English speaker with a PhD from the London School of Economics.

The second of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's seven sons, Saif al-Islam was given the task of defending his father's government in a televised address early on Monday after the worst unrest of the elder Gaddafi's four-decade rule.

In his address, he accused exiles of fomenting violence and promised a dialogue leading toward reforms.
Widely seen as belonging to a camp that aims to open Libya's economy, Saif al-Islam helped lead talks with Western governments that in the past 10 years saw Libya renounce nuclear weapons and end decades of isolation as a foe of the West, paving the way for large-scale investment in its oil sector.

Accused of money laundering by The Daily Telegraph in two articles published in 1995 (one of which focused on the alleged operation flooding "the Iranian economy with fake Iranian currency", Saif al-Islam sued the UK newspaper for libel, prompting the Telegraph to issue an apology in 2002 for the "falsity of the allegations" levelled against him.

 

Saif al-Islam has clashed publicly with the ruling elite over proposals for reforms. Some analysts believe his conservative opponents have the backing of his brothers Mutassim, a national security adviser, and Khamis, a senior military leader. In December, he took the unusual step of denying a family feud with his brothers.

In 2008, the AP reported that Saif al-Islam announced that he was leaving politics, and that he'd given, "no explanation for his decision", only dismissing reports of a rift between himself and his father.
He made his announcement via a televised statement, in which also called for political reforms, he said, "I have decided not to intervene in state affairs," he said in the speech, broadcast on state television. "In the past, I used to intervene (in politics) due to the absence of institutions."
He said he would not succeed his father as the country's leader, adding that the reigns of power were "not a farm to inherit".

His turf war with conservatives has escalated in the past few months, with many Libya-watchers seeing signs of his influence being held in check. Twenty journalists working for al Ghad, a media group which had been linked to him, were briefly arrested. The head of the group stepped down and its flagship newspaper stopped printing.

Much of his influence was wielded through his position as the head of a charity. Late last year the charity said it was withdrawing from politics and his post of chairman was being made into an honorary role.

Muammar Gaddafi |Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi |Gaddafi Muammar Gaddafi |Gaddafi

Gaddafi is known as much for his eccentric clothing and female bodyguards as for his repressive rule [EPA]

In power since 1969, Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world.

He led a bloodless coup toppling King Idris at the age of 27, and has since maintained tight control of his oil-rich country by clamping down on dissidents. The ongoing bloody uprising poses the most serious domestic challenge to his rule.

Among his many eccentricities, Gaddafi is known to sleep in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards on trips abroad.

Gaddafi was born in 1942 in the coastal area of Sirte to nomadic parents. He went to Benghazi University to study geography, but dropped out to join the army.
After seizing power, he laid out a pan-Arab, anti-imperialist philosophy, blended with aspects of Islam. While he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones.
He was an admirer of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Arab socialist and nationalist ideology.

He tried without success to merge Libya, Egypt and Syria into a federation. A similar attempt to join Libya and Tunisia ended in acrimony.

Crushing dissident
In 1977 he changed the country's name to the Great Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah (State of the Masses) and allowed people to air their views at people's congresses.
However, critics dismissed his leadership as a military dictatorship, accusing him of repressing civil society and ruthlessly crushing dissident.
To this day, the media remains under strict government control.
The regime has imprisoned hundreds of people for violating the law and sentenced some to death, according to Human Rights Watch.

At the UN General Assembly in 2009, Gaddafi accused the body of being a terrorism group like al-Qaeda [EPA]

"Gaddafi, gradually as he took power, he used force and he used brutality," Mohammed al-Abdalla, the deputy secretary-general of the National front for Salvation of Libya, tells Al Jazeera.
"In the 1970s against students, when he publicly hung  students who were marching, demonstrating, demanding rights in Benghazi and in Tripoli and many other squares, and his opposition members abroad in the 1980s, including here in London and other places in Europe and in in Arab Middle East.
"He executed, in probably the most brutal massacre that we saw, 1,200 prisoners in the Abu Salim prison who were unarmed, They were already in jail, he executed them in less than three hours."

Mohammed al-Abdalla, the deputy secretary-general of the National front for Salvation of Libya
Gaddafi played a prominent role in organising Arab opposition to the 1978 Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Later shunned by a number of Arab states on the basis of his extreme views on how to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among others, Gaddafi's foreign policy shifted from an Arab focus to an African focus.
His vision of a United States of Africa resulted in the foundation of the African Union.

Lockerbie bombing
In the West, Gaddafi is strongly associated with "terrorism", accused of supporting armed groups including FARC in Colombia and the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Libya’s alleged involvement in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub in which two American soldiers were killed prompted US air attacks on Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 35 Libyans, including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter. Ronald Reagan, the then US president, called him a "mad dog".

The 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland is possibly the most well known and controversial international incident in which Gaddafi has been involved.

For many years, Gaddafi denied involvement, resulting in UN sanctions and Libya’s status as a pariah state. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted for planting the bomb. Gaddafi's regime formally accepted responsibility for the attack in 2003 and paid compensation to the families of those who died.

Also in 2003, Gaddafi broke Libya's isolation from the West by relinquishing his entire inventory of weapons of mass destruction.

In September 2004, George Bush, the US president at the time, formally ended a US trade embargo as a result of Gaddafi's scrapping of the arms programme and taking responsibility for Lockerbie.
The normalisation of relations with Western powers has allowed the Libyan economy to grow and the oil industry in particular has benefited.


However, Gaddafi and Lockerbie came back into the spotlight in 2009, when al-Megrahi was released and returned to Libya. The hero’s welcome al-Megrahi received from Gaddafi on his return was condemned by the the US and the UK, among others.

In September 2009, Gaddafi visited the US for the first time for his his first appearance at the UN General Assembly.

His speech was supposed to be 15 minutes, but exceeded an hour and a half. He tore up a copy of the UN charter, accused the Security Council of being a terrorism body similar to al-Qaeda, and demanded $ 7.7 trillion in compensation to be paid to Africa from its past colonial rulers.

During a visit to Italy in August 2010, Gaddafi's invitation to hundreds of young women to convert to Islam overshadowed the two-day trip, which was intended to cement the growing ties between Tripoli and Rome.

libya photos | libya photography | libya photographs | pictures of libya

libya photos | libya photography | libya photographs | pictures of libya

Chavez denounces international community's double standards and rejects intervention in Libya

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rejects intervention in Libya and criticizes media coverage of major global news The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, lamented on Friday the situation in Libya and denounced the media manipulation and double standards of the international community is quick to condemn the government of Muammar Al Gaddafi, and say nothing about human rights violations in countries like Afghanistan or Iraq. He is also a vote for peace and condemned violence. "Those who condemn Libya immediately to make exits with the bombing of the State of Israel on Fallujah, and thousands and thousands of deaths including children, women, families, they remain silent with the bombing and the massacres in Iraq, Afghanistan, they have no morals then to condemn anyone," said the head of state who made a vow because Libya will find its way through peaceful means. "We condemn the violence, imperialism, interventionism," he added. He recalled that as now standing accused Gaddafi, in 2002, he was himself briefly overthrown by a coup, and accusers said he too was a "murderer" of his people. "And the sentence immediately condemned me as an equal to me: "The murderer Chavez ordered to massacre the unarmed people,"said Chavez, who on April 11, 2002 was accused by the media and some countries of perpetrating a slaughter in Yaguna bridge in the center of the capital Caracas, where they found two marches for and against management. After rigorous research demonstrated that day in buildings near the scene acted snipers, some of them foreign. Chavez, who reiterated the friendship that links with Gaddafi, said he can not say it supports "or I support or applaud any decision made by a friend of mine anywhere in the world. No”. No." "We do support the Government of Libya, Libya's independence, we want peace for Libya, peace for all peoples of the world and we must vigorously oppose the claims for intervention," he said. He reiterated his Government's commitment to world peace and feelings of the Arab peoples. "Everybody knows our position in favor of life, everyone knows our struggle for peace, as everyone knows we love all people, as we love and want the Arab people as these people (...) we want," he added. He highlighted the work of journalists from teleSUR who travelled to the North African country. The head of state explained that since the uprisings began in North Africa and Middle East, his Venezuelan government has chosen to maintain a "prudent silence." "We have kept a prudent silence because firstly there is much misinformation, not only in the case of Libya, in the same case in Egypt were very wise I said to Nicholas, Nicholas caution, because we are accustomed to handling global media" .

Gaddafi's son Sayf yesterday invited opponents to talk today

Gaddafi's son Sayf yesterday invited opponents to talk today (Saturday)

Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader expressed his willingness to negotiate with the Libyan rebels Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, eldest son of Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, said on Friday he wants to negotiate with the rebels from this Saturday, in a press conference which was convened to foreign correspondents in Tripoli, capital of Libya. The son of the Libyan ruler said that the Army will not take any more attacks on Saturday to promote a climate for negotiation. "The Army decided not to target terrorists and provide an opportunity for negotiation. We do it peacefully and that is for tomorrow," he said. Saif al-Islam reported that the situation is calm in the country except in the cities of Misrata and Zawiya, in which he recognized to have problems. "Apart from Misrata and Zawiya, all is quiet (...) The negotiations are ongoing and we are optimistic," said Saif Al Islam Gaddafi. Forces loyal to al-Gaddafi in Tripoli maintain control, while in Benghazi (east), the second largest city, popular committees constituted by the opponents are planning to command and coordinate actions with other "Libyan towns liberated", as have international media reported. This means in fact that the Libyan people have taken control there in a unified manner in line with true direct democracy, or at least an attempt to do so. Direct democracy was given lip service by Gaddafi, who also stamped his name on The Green Book, but which has since been removed. However, the special envoy to Tripoli of the Latin American independent satellite TV network, teleSUR, Jordan Rodriguez, reported earlier Friday by telephone that there were riots in several parts of the capital. "The situation has changed radically, yesterday we got out without any problems, we saw calm, the situation today is different, unrest in the east and west of Tripoli..." said Rodriguez. This Friday, Muammar Gaddafi appeared in public in Tripoli's Green Square to encourage his followers to defend the government. In his speech, the Libyan leader threatened to open the arsenals "as needed" to arm the tribes that make up the country and fight the opponents. For its part, the U.S. government suspended the activities of its embassy in Tripoli for security reasons and announced it will impose unilateral or multilateral sanctions against Libya. The European Union and United Nations (UN) are studying, among other measures, a total arms embargo and the freezing of the Gaddafi family assets within the Community. The Security Council discussed on Saturday the UN a resolution condemning crimes against Libya for Human Rights on Friday after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will urge the agency to "lose no time" to rule on the conflict in the North African country.

Libya: weapons depot blasts kill 19

Explosions minutes apart at a Libyan military weapons depot killed 19 people and wounded dozens more outside the main rebel-held city of Benghazi on Friday, doctors said.

A Libyan military weapons depot burns outside the main rebel-held city of Benghazi Photo: AP

 

 

Residents living up to 10 kilometres (six miles) from the main weapons warehouse southeast of Benghazi, said windows shook and an inferno lit up the night sky, as ambulances raced to bring the casualties to hospital.

The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear, although most local residents ruled out an air strike by forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Gaddafi in an intensifying battle with eastern rebels fighting for his ouster.

Resident Abdallah Bubakr told AFP rebels turned up at the military base, demanding weapons to take to the front at Raslanuf, an oil town further west that rebels later on Friday claimed to have captured from Gaddafi's forces.

"Two cars rode up with people at the place and said they wanted weapons to take to Raslanuf. They entered the store and just after they left Rajma, there was the first explosion, followed five minutes later by another," he said.

"The first explosion was mild and the second big," he added.

Libya: LSE feared 'embarrassing' Gaddafi's son over donation

The London School of Economics faced fresh criticism last night after it emerged academics refused to return a £1.5m donation to Libya for fear of causing “personal embarrassment” to Col Gaddafi’s son.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi addresses the country on state television Photo: AFP

Leaked documents show that the university's ruling council was warned against accepting the donation from a charity run by Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi because of controversy over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The disclosure comes just 24 hours after Sir Howard Davies resigned as the university's director after accepting that its reputation had been damaged by a decision to take the money.

The Daily Telegraph has also learned that Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, made a personal contribution to Saif Gaddafi's thesis when he was studying at the LSE. Mr Blair gave him an interview in which he described how corrupt states can be made more transparent.

There was growing pressure last night for the whole of the university’s ruling council to step down.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow who is demanding a government inquiry into the donations, told the Telegraph: “The only way the LSE can restore its name is for the entire council to resign.

Libya: rebels consolidate eastern Libya

Libya's opposition consolidated its hold on the country's east on Friday after launching a lightening attack on a major oil port controlled by Col Muammar Gaddafi's retreating troops.

Libyan rebels who are part of the forces against Col Gaddafi stand with an anti-aircraft gun near Ras Lanuf Photo: AP

Advancing rapidly through the desert, a motley army of poorly armed civilian volunteers appeared to have captured the outskirts of Ras Lanuf on Friday night, bringing the uprising to within 150 miles of Sirte, the Libyan leader's birthplace and a major loyalist stronghold.

On Col Gaddafi's eastern front, the revolution has achieved a spate of unlikely victories with apparent ease, giving it vital momentum against an increasingly demoralised enemy.

In the west by contrast Col Gaddafi is reasserting his grip, apparent taking the town of Zawiya, just 30 miles west of Tripoli, on Friday night. In the capital his militia are able to roam between positions and on Friday staged a show of force to lock down the capital for Friday prayers, a traditional starting-point for protest.

Just two days before, the men advancing on Ras Lanuf, 410 miles east of Tripoli, had succeeded in recapturing the town of Brega, securing its vital oil refinery and airport after a fierce battle in the desert dunes.

Many in the east had been bracing themselves for a renewed onslaught on Brega by Col Gaddafi's army, which had retreated to Ras Lanuf to await reinforcements.

Gaddafi's tanks fired on residential areas

Libya: Fierce battle for Zawiyah amid claims Gaddafi's tanks fired on residential areas

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has sent in new forces towards the western town of Zawiyah after Libyan rebels repelled an attack by his soldiers on Saturday.

  Protesters opposed to leader Muammar Gaddafi on a tank of Libyan army defectors, in the city of Zawiyah Photo: REUTERS

Gaddafi's forces were driven out of central Zawiyah on Saturday morning, but returned with reinforcements.

They also were reported to have erected road blocks preventing entry to the town.

Youssef Shagan, spokesman for the rebels, said that Gaddafi's forces had earlier been defeated.

"They entered Zawiyah at six in the morning with heavy forces, hundreds of soldiers with tanks. Our people fought back ... We have won for now and civilians are gathering in the square."

Mr Shagan said that earlier on Saturday, Gaddafi forces had fired high explosive rounds in the centre of the town, 30 miles west of the capital Tripoli, and rebel forces had captured two tanks.

Who is Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi |Gaddafi

Gaddafi is known as much for his eccentric clothing and female bodyguards as for his repressive rule [EPA]

In power since 1969, Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world.

He led a bloodless coup toppling King Idris at the age of 27, and has since maintained tight control of his oil-rich country by clamping down on dissidents. The ongoing bloody uprising poses the most serious domestic challenge to his rule.

Among his many eccentricities, Gaddafi is known to sleep in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards on trips abroad.

Gaddafi was born in 1942 in the coastal area of Sirte to nomadic parents. He went to Benghazi University to study geography, but dropped out to join the army.
After seizing power, he laid out a pan-Arab, anti-imperialist philosophy, blended with aspects of Islam. While he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones.
He was an admirer of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Arab socialist and nationalist ideology.

He tried without success to merge Libya, Egypt and Syria into a federation. A similar attempt to join Libya and Tunisia ended in acrimony.

Crushing dissident
In 1977 he changed the country's name to the Great Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah (State of the Masses) and allowed people to air their views at people's congresses.
However, critics dismissed his leadership as a military dictatorship, accusing him of repressing civil society and ruthlessly crushing dissident.
To this day, the media remains under strict government control.
The regime has imprisoned hundreds of people for violating the law and sentenced some to death, according to Human Rights Watch.

At the UN General Assembly in 2009, Gaddafi accused the body of being a terrorism group like al-Qaeda [EPA]

"Gaddafi, gradually as he took power, he used force and he used brutality," Mohammed al-Abdalla, the deputy secretary-general of the National front for Salvation of Libya, tells Al Jazeera.
"In the 1970s against students, when he publicly hung  students who were marching, demonstrating, demanding rights in Benghazi and in Tripoli and many other squares, and his opposition members abroad in the 1980s, including here in London and other places in Europe and in in Arab Middle East.
"He executed, in probably the most brutal massacre that we saw, 1,200 prisoners in the Abu Salim prison who were unarmed, They were already in jail, he executed them in less than three hours."

Mohammed al-Abdalla, the deputy secretary-general of the National front for Salvation of Libya
Gaddafi played a prominent role in organising Arab opposition to the 1978 Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Later shunned by a number of Arab states on the basis of his extreme views on how to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among others, Gaddafi's foreign policy shifted from an Arab focus to an African focus.
His vision of a United States of Africa resulted in the foundation of the African Union.

Lockerbie bombing
In the West, Gaddafi is strongly associated with "terrorism", accused of supporting armed groups including FARC in Colombia and the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Libya’s alleged involvement in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub in which two American soldiers were killed prompted US air attacks on Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 35 Libyans, including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter. Ronald Reagan, the then US president, called him a "mad dog".

The 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland is possibly the most well known and controversial international incident in which Gaddafi has been involved.

For many years, Gaddafi denied involvement, resulting in UN sanctions and Libya’s status as a pariah state. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted for planting the bomb. Gaddafi's regime formally accepted responsibility for the attack in 2003 and paid compensation to the families of those who died.

Also in 2003, Gaddafi broke Libya's isolation from the West by relinquishing his entire inventory of weapons of mass destruction.

In September 2004, George Bush, the US president at the time, formally ended a US trade embargo as a result of Gaddafi's scrapping of the arms programme and taking responsibility for Lockerbie.
The normalisation of relations with Western powers has allowed the Libyan economy to grow and the oil industry in particular has benefited.


However, Gaddafi and Lockerbie came back into the spotlight in 2009, when al-Megrahi was released and returned to Libya. The hero’s welcome al-Megrahi received from Gaddafi on his return was condemned by the the US and the UK, among others.

In September 2009, Gaddafi visited the US for the first time for his his first appearance at the UN General Assembly.

His speech was supposed to be 15 minutes, but exceeded an hour and a half. He tore up a copy of the UN charter, accused the Security Council of being a terrorism body similar to al-Qaeda, and demanded $ 7.7 trillion in compensation to be paid to Africa from its past colonial rulers.

During a visit to Italy in August 2010, Gaddafi's invitation to hundreds of young women to convert to Islam overshadowed the two-day trip, which was intended to cement the growing ties between Tripoli and Rome.