Saif Gaddafi, Prominent Son Of Ex-Libyan Leader, Assassinated By Unknown Gunmen

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the the most prominent son of Libya’s late long-time ruler, has died, according to his family on Tuesday.

His adviser, Abdallah Othman Abdurrahim, also confirmed his death but without giving details. “Seif al-Islam has fallen as a martyr,” his cousin, Hamid Kadhafi, has told Libyan TV. Emerging reports point to what appears an assassination.

Four unidentified men reportedly entered his property and shot him in a garden execution-style. “Four armed men stormed the residence of Seif al-Islam Kadhafi after disabling surveillance cameras, then executed him,” according to a statement. There have long been reports and rumors that he was attempting a return to national politics after previously being barred from any top office.

The killing took place in Zintan, in northwestern Libya – though he had long kept himself hidden from public view amid Libya’s fractured politics and current state of internecine civil war. He’s said to have been based in Zintan for much of the last decade.

Despite never holding an official post, the younger Gaddafi effectively served as his father’s number two from 2000 until 2011, operating as a key power broker inside Libya until Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by by NATO-backed Islamist ‘rebels’ – bringing an end to decades of stable rule.

It was on October 20th 2011 that Col. Gaddafi was dragged from a drain pipe outside his hometown of Sirte, tortured and killed. He was sodomized with a bayonet, before being shot – with much of the brutal death captured on grainy cell phone footage. Western officials celebrated the war crime and summary execution.

His son Saif was captured in 2011 while attempting to flee the country and was subsequently imprisoned in Zintan. He remained in detention for years before being released in 2017 under a general amnesty, and quietly returned to living in Libya, but at times was in and out of the news, also as competing powers vied to form a new government.

Al Jazeera reviews of Saif’s life and background:

A Western-educated and well-spoken man, Gaddafi presented a progressive face to the oppressive Libyan regime run by his father – and he played a leading role in a drive to repair Libya’s relations with the West, beginning in the early 2000s.

He received a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2008, with his dissertation looking into the role of civil society in reforming global governance.

Gaddafi remained prominent throughout the violence that gripped the country in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency at the time of the popular uprising in Libya in 2011, he said: “We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya.”

The same report features quotes from Saif which seem spot on, referring to the US-led NATO war under then President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

He warned that rivers of blood would flow and the government would fight to the last man and woman and bullet.

“All of Libya will be destroyed. We will need 40 years to reach an agreement on how to run the country, because today, everyone will want to be president, or emir, and everybody will want to run the country,” he said.

Was this hit an act of anti-Gaddafi revenge? Were there fears of Saif’s growing popularity in Libya? Since the Gaddafi government overthrow, Libya has remained divided into at least two major rival governments, reflecting also a geographical East-West divide.

“America is the reason for chaos in Libya”…

At times there have existed even three or up to four governments in sectors of the country, largely commanded by warlords – and yet the media has largely forgotten ‘Obama’s war’.

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