Photo Gallery Gadhafi's Career as Libya's Dictator

Moammar Gadhafi's rule is history. After four decades of iron-fisted control in Libya, rebels announced on Thursday that he had been killed. A dictator's life, in pictures.
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The Libyan revolutionary leader Moammar Gadhafi in one of the first pictures taken of him following the military putsch of Sept. 1, 1969. He would rule Libya for 42 years.

Foto: UPI/ dpa
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In February of this year, Libyans had finally had enough of their leader. Protests turned into an insurgency which ultimately, with the help of NATO, drove Gadhafi from Tripoli.

Foto: DPA
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The son of a Bedouin, Gadhafi spent much of his time in a tent in Tripoli. His dark sunglasses and extravagant clothes also become something of a Gadhafi trademark.

Foto: epa Sabri Elmhedwi/ picture-alliance/ dpa
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Gadhafi's early role model was the Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser (left, in an image from 1969). Later, Gadhafi broke with the idea of pan-Arabism.

Foto: Farouk Ibrahim/ AP
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The dictator was able to solidify his power with a campaign of Islamization. He forbade alcohol and closed down US and British military bases in the country. Foreigners were told to leave. Gadhafi even forced the Italian community in Libya to exhume the remains of their dead family members and take them back to Italy. He showed the event on live television.

Foto: Keystone/ Getty Images
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Gadhafi was a primary backer of "Islamic Socialism." He granted himself the title "Revolutionary Leader of Libya" in 1979. Criticism of his leadership grew outside of Libya.

Foto: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The bomb attack on the Berlin disco La Belle in the night of April 5, 1986, was one of the most serious terror attacks against US troops in Germany. Three people died in the explosion.

Foto: dapd
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Gadhafi's agents were blamed for the attack and the US bombed the Libyan capital Tripoli. The Libyan dictator did his best to instrumentalize the death of civilians in those attacks. Here, Gadhafi gives an interview to Soviet journalists.

Foto: AP
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In 1988, Libyan terrorists carried out the mid-air bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack killed 270 people.

Foto: GREG BOS/ Reuters
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Gadhafi was omnipresent in Libyan life. Here, a gigantic poster of the dictator covers the wall of a building in Tripoli.

Foto: Amr Nabil/ AP
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In 1996, an assailant attempted to assassinate Gadhafi with a hand grenade, seen in the picture. The New York Times reported that the British secret service had a hand in financing the attack.

Foto: AP/ ANN
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Gadhafi was long considered to be something of a ladies' man and was cared for by a team of nurses from Eastern Europe. For eight years, the Ukrainian nurse Halyna Kolotnytska, seen here, seldom left his side. She returned to Kiev once the uprising began last spring.

Foto: AP/ Halyna Kolotnytskas family archive
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Gadhafi played a key mediation role in the hostage drama on the Philippine island of Jolo in 2000. The Germans Werner and Marc Wallert were freed as were several others -- for a ransom of $1 million per prisoner.

Foto: ENRIQUE SORINAO/ AP
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By 2010, Gadhafi was one of the longest-serving despots on the African continent. Here, he is seen with Tunisian ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in October 2010. Three out of the four have been toppled in the Arab Spring and only Saleh is still clinging to power.

Foto: Sabri Elmehedwi/ dpa
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In 2003, Gadhafi underwent a foreign-policy about-face and renounced weapons of mass destruction. The move was likely more the result of political calculation that personal conviction. Here, a Libyan soldier driving a vehicle mounted with missiles in a 1999 military parade.

Foto: MARWAN NAAMANI/ AFP
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Then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder meeting with Gadhafi in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli in 2004. The first ever visit of a German head of government to Libya marked the beginning of expanded relations between the two countries.

Foto: Sabri_Elmhedwi/ dpa
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German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle with Gadhafi during the EU-Africa summit in 2010. In March 2011, Westerwelle abstained from the UN Security Council vote authorizing the imposition of a no fly zone over Libya due to Gadhafi's aggression against anti-regime activists. Westerwelle's move was widely criticized.

Foto: dapd
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Gadhafi was famous for his collection of female bodyguards. This image shows him arriving in Rome for a visit in August 2010. He said he felt better protected by women than by men.

Foto: Ettore Ferrari/ dpa
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Members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group leaving prison after being released in February of this year. The release occurred just one day after the beginning of the violent protests that would ultimately bring down Gadhafi's dictatorship. The protests were led by family members of the some 1,200 prisoners who were killed in a 1996 massacre.

Foto: Sabri Elmhedwi/ dpa
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Gadhafi installed family members in important positions of power in his state apparatus. His eight children played a particularly important role. Saif al-Islam, pictured here, was long considered to be Gadhafi's likely successor. Educated in the West, many considered Saif to be more reasonable than his father. Now, however, he stands accused of crimes against humanity.

Foto: dapd
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Another son, Hannibal, is known primarily for having been arrested for assault in Switzerland in 2008. The arrest caused a diplomatic crisis between Libya and Switzerland. He has fled to Algeria.

Foto: A3131 epa Scanpix Kuhl/ dpa
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Gadhafi's appearance before the United Nations General Assembly in 2009 became legendary. In his first ever visit to the US, he ranted and raved for 100 minutes, six times his allotted time. He ripped up a UN charter during his speech.

Foto: MIKE SEGAR/ REUTERS
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Gadhafi at a military parade in Tripoli in 1999. He became known for his gaudy wardrobe and his eccentricities. For the 40th anniversary of his rule, he threw a multi-million dollar party including trick riders, military marches, fireworks and gigantic images of his "enemies" who had been hanged by the regime.

Foto: Marwan Naamani/ dpa
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His eccentricity often got him into trouble with the global community. In 1982, the CIA became convinced that he was psychologically ill.

Foto: STR/ REUTERS
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Gadhafi appeared on Libyan television several times during the spring of 2011, even as demonstrations and an insurgency raged on. He said he would fight to the death.

Foto: AFP/ Libya TV
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An appearance in February of this year was particularly odd. Gadhafi appeared on television sitting in a car and holding an umbrella. "I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela," he said, in an effort to counter speculation that he had already left Libya.

Foto: dpa
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Insurgency soldiers celebrating the taking of Gadhafi's birthplace of Sirte. A short time later, the Libyan transitional national council announced that Gadhafi was dead.

Foto: ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI/ REUTERS