Random Facts:



• After Omar Bongo of Gabon died earlier this year, Gaddafi became the world's third-longest serving head of state, after King Rama IX of Thailand, and Queen Elizabeth II.

• Like Chairman Mao with his Little Red Book, Gaddafi wrote about his beliefs and ambitions for a socialist-Islamic state in a widely read work. His Green Book was published in three volumes from 1975 to 1979, and he has also released a collection of essays and allegories, Escape to Hell and other stories.

• Gaddafi recently expressed his desire for a 'United States of Africa'. In 1972 he tried to join Libya with Egypt and Syria in a 'Federation of Arab Republics', and two years later, he made another effort, ultimately acrimoniously, to merge Libya with Tunisia.

• Libya was the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive the supersonic MiG-25 combat fighters.

• In 2002, Gaddafi bought a significant stake in Juventus, the Italian football club, from his friend Gianni Agnelli, the owner of Fiat.

• Gaddafi has awarded himself the title 'King of Kings of Africa'. He has also decided that he should be known as 'Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya' or 'Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution'. (President Ronald Reagan was less complimentary; he called the Libyan leader the 'mad dog of the Middle East'.)

• Gaddafi spoke out quickly and strongly against al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, and urged Libyans to donate blood for the victims.

• Libya has one of the world's most ambitious irrigation systems. The Great Manmade River is a huge network of pipes, viaducts and wells, sometimes as much as 500 metres underneath the surface of the earth, which transports more than 6 million cubic metres of water from underneath the Sahara to the country's northern regions every day.

• Of Gaddafi's eight children, one is a former professional footballer in Italy. However, Saadi Gaddafi managed to play only two Serie A games during spells with Perugia, Udinese and Sampdoria.

• Moatessem-Billah Gaddafi, another son, once tried, with Egyptian backing, to engineer a coup against his father, but has since returned to the fold.

• On every foreign trip he makes, Gaddafi is surrounded by a 40-strong retinue of female bodyguards, who he insists must be virgins. "Women should be trained for combat, so that they do not become easy prey for their enemies," he once said.



After the recent events in Tunisia, Egypt..
Is Gaddafi NEXT??