User:Col. Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi[5][variations] (Arabic: مُعَمَّر ٱلْقَذَّافِيّ‎ Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī About this sound audio (help·info); born 7 June 1942) is a Libyan politician and revolutionary, who has led the Libyan state since he overthrew King Idris in a 1969 bloodless coup and established the Libyan Arab Republic.[6] His almost 42 years in power make him one of the longest-serving rulers in history.[7] Gaddafi incorporated Arab socialist and Arab nationalist ideas into his political philosophy, which he published in The Green Book in 1975. In 1979, he relinquished the title of prime minister, and was thereafter called "The Brother Leader" or "The Guide" in Libya's Socialist Revolution.[8][9]

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Libya under Gaddafi was considered a pariah state by the Western nations,[10][11] which alleged oppression of internal dissidence, acts of state-sponsored terrorism, assassinations of expatriate opposition leaders, and crass nepotism exhibited in amassing a multi-billion-dollar fortune for himself and his family.[12] Gaddafi was a firm supporter of OAPEC and led a Pan-African campaign for a United States of Africa.[13] After the 1986 Bombing of Libya and the 1993 imposition of United Nations sanctions, Gaddafi established closer economic and security relations with the West, cooperated with investigations into previous Libyan acts of state-sponsored terrorism and paid compensation, and ended his nuclear weapons program, resulting in the lifting of UN sanctions in 2003.

In early February 2011, major political protests, which were inspired by recent protests in Tunisia, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, broke out in Libya against Gaddafi's government and quickly turned into a civil war. Gaddafi vowed to "die a martyr" if necessary in his fight against rebels and external forces, saying that those rebelling against his government deserve to die.[14][15][16] On 17 May 2011 the International Criminal Court issued a request for an arrest warrant against Gaddafi for crimes against humanity.