Griffin and Holland tried to enlist the financial aid of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, but the idea was rejected once the Libyans found out about the NF's reputation as fascist ( a quarter of Libya's adult male population was killed by Benito Mussolini's troops during World War II ).

Thus in March 1979 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who kept absolute power ( until his overthrow in 2011 referred to as " Guide of the Revolution "), after ten years as combined Head of State and Head of government of the Libyan Jamahiriya (" state of the masses "), styled Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally transferred both qualities to the General secretaries of the General People's Congress ( comparable to a Speaker ) respectively to a Prime Minister, in political reality both were his creatures.

However, Mahdi soon turned against Gaddafi by declaring Sudan a neutral state in both regional and global conflicts and ordered Libyan troops to leave the country.

" Mirabella again created controversy on 2 March 2011, when she compared the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard to Muammar Gaddafi, claiming that both were delusional.

And if the initial hesitations and the abrupt about-face to the Gaddafi regime may be an element in common with the behaviour of other countries, however, Italy is the only international actor that has long sought to " cling to an imaginary role of mediator ", of which it lacked both the necessary opower and authority.

His support of figures such as Fidel Castro and Muammar Gaddafi was also noted as controversial, with his relentless left-wing approach to politics being identified as damaging both to others and to the causes he championed.

While AI and HRW reported that there were concerns about the " repressive atmosphere ," both felt there were signs of " improvement " and HRW said that one should not " underestimate the importance of the efforts made so far " by Gaddafi in the realm of human rights in Libya.

During this period, Moscow also supplied $ 4. 6 billion in weaponry to Libya, providing about 90 percent of that country's arms inventory, and the Gaddafi regime assisted the Soviet Union by playing a key role in preserving the Communist regimes in both Angola and Ethiopia.

Together with Fidel Castro and other Communist leaders, Gaddafi supported Soviet protege Haile Mariam Mengistu, the military ruler of Ethiopia, who was later convicted for a genocide that killed thousands.

According to Kommersant, " Libya was one of the Soviet Union's few partners that paid in full for the military equipment it purchased from the USSR ," though the Gaddafi regime still maintained good relations with the Western nations of France and Italy and refused to sign a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Gaddafi escaped unharmed ; however, his adopted daughter Hanna was claimed to be one of the civilian casualties.

Gaddafi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as his territorial water and his navy was involved in a conflict from January to March 1986.

CCTV also mislabeled a person holding a banner which said " Vive la France " and claimed that he was a supporter of Gaddafi.

Two weeks before the La Belle discotheque blast, Gaddafi called for Arab assaults on American interests worldwide after a U. S .- Libyan naval clash in the Mediterranean, in which 35 seamen on a Libyan patrol boat in the western Gulf of Sidra were killed in international waters claimed by Libyan government.

LIFG claimed responsibility for a failed assassination attempt against Gaddafi in February 1996, which was in part funded by MI6 according to David Shayler, and engaged Libyan security forces in armed clashes during the mid-to-late 1990s.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi claimed that the embassy was under attack from British forces, and Libyan soldiers surrounded the United Kingdom's embassy in Tripoli in response.

The Libyan government claimed that Eljahmi was put on trial in late 2005, accused of the capital charges of " trying to overthrow the government, insulting Col. Gaddafi and contacting foreign authorities, after he talked to a US diplomat.

In 2009, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi claimed that Libya's opinion of him was shaped largely by his role in Libya's engagement with the West, saying " If something goes wrong, people will blame me, whether I am in a certain official position or not.

A brief filed by the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence on behalf of Gaddafi claimed that " there is no basis for asserting that the ICC should defer the case to Libya ".

Muammar Gaddafi " claimed to be ' King of Kings ,' a title he had a gathering of tribal leaders grant him in 2008.

In 1986, U. S. President Ronald Reagan ( who survived an assassination attempt himself ) ordered the Operation El Dorado Canyon air raid on Libya in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi was the first head of state to recognize the new regime, and he also signed treaties of friendship and cooperation on various levels ; but regarding the Aouzou Strip Déby followed his predecessor, declaring that if necessary he would fight to keep the strip out of Libya's hands.

Under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's missions used the name people's bureau and the head of the mission was a secretary.

The monarchy came to an end on 1 September 1969 when a group of military officers led by Muammar Gaddafi staged a coup d ’ état against King Idris while he was in Turkey for medical treatment.

On 1 September 1969 a small group of military officers led by then 27-year-old army officer Muammar Gaddafi staged a coup d ' état against King Idris, who was exiled to Egypt.

Gaddafi also styled himself as an advocate of Pan-Africanism, and was active in the establishment of the African Union in 2001.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi asserted that he was still in Libya and would not concede power to the rebels.

Although it was the primary language since colonial rule, Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic became the sole official language of the country.

In June 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said his father would agree to internationally monitored general elections, and would step down if he lost them, but his offer was refused by the rebels and ignored by the UN Security Council.

Of these officials, Baghdadi Mahmudi and Abuzed Omar Dorda were arrested, while Saif al-Arab Gaddafi was killed by a NATO airstrike during the war, Khamis Gaddafi was killed in action after the fall of Tripoli, and Muammar and Mutassim Gaddafi, as well as Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, were killed during the fall of Sirte.

There was no separate defence ministry ; all defence activities were centralised under Gaddafi.

Under Gaddafi, conscription was listed as 18 months.

Initially the effective force was limited to smaller vessels, but this changed after the rise of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 1969.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps ( Liwa Haris al-Jamahiriya ) or Jamahiriya Guard was a Libyan paramilitary elite unit that played the role of key protection force of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, until his death in October 2011.

The Islamic Pan-African Legion was reported to have been committed during the fighting in Chad in 1980 and was praised by Gaddafi for its success there.

In March 1985, it was announced that the National Command of the Revolutionary Forces Command in the Arab Nation had been formed with Gaddafi at its head.

Gaddafi contended that it was the People's Militia that met the Egyptian incursions during the border clash of 1977, although the Egyptians insisted that their successful raids had been contested by regular army units.

The Emirati government, as part of its support to the National Transitional Council in the course of the 2011 Libyan civil war, requested that Etisalat assist the NTC restore mobile communications to the rebel-held areas of Libya, which had been cut off by the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

On 27 June, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi, alleging that Gaddafi had been personally involved in planning and implementing " a policy of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and demonstrators and dissidents ".

# Muammar Gaddafi: Responsibility for ordering repression of demonstrations, human rights abuses.

In addition, the Revolutionary Guard Corps also served as a brigade-sized protection force for Gaddafi.

On 11 June 1972, Gaddafi announced that any Arab wishing to volunteer for Palestinian armed groups " can register his name at any Libyan embassy will be given adequate training for combat ".

Gaddafi played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West — especially the United States — to end support for Israel.

Gaddafi applauded the murder and remarked that it was a " punishment " for Sadat's signing of the Camp David Accords with the United States and Israel.

Gaddafi also trained and supported Charles Taylor, who was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone.

Libyan-Swiss relations strongly suffered after the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi for beating up his domestic servants in Geneva in 2008.

In February 2009, Gaddafi was selected to be chairman of the African Union for one year.

Specifically, Harper's government was planning to publicly criticize Gaddafi for praising the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

Libya also still provided bounties for heads of refugees who criticized Gaddafi, including 1 million dollars for Ashur Shamis, a Libyan-British journalist.

On 15 July 2008 the fifth eldest son of Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal Gaddafi, and his wife were held for two days and charged with assaulting two of their staff in Geneva, Switzerland and then released on bail on 17 July.

At the 35th G8 summit in July 2009, Muammar Gaddafi called Switzerland a " world mafia " and called for the country to be split between France, Germany and Italy.

In August 2009 Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz visited Tripoli and issued a public apology to Libya for the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife.

The Nigerian foreign ministry stated that it was recalling Mohammed for " urgent negotiations " due to the " irresponsible utterances of Colonel Gaddafi ".