Exit the Colonel (44 page)

Between the fall of Tripoli on August 20 and the fall of Sirte two months later, Libya was gripped by a powerful ambivalence: a sense of relief on the part of the rebels and most of the population that the regime was done, balanced by a foreboding that arose from the fact that Gaddafi—and most of his family members—were still at large. Gaddafi had proven that he was still able to amass considerable support, in the West and South, at least, and was presumed to have access to substantial assets, through in-country loyalist networks and foreign accounts. (Many of Gaddafi's closest aides were said to have transferred currency out of the country and from known accounts outside the country into yet other accounts, for weeks before the outbreak of the revolution.) The South African government was widely rumored to have sent two cargo planes to Tripoli just before the fall of Bab Al Azziziya to pick up cash and gold bullion.
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Early rebel reports suggested that Gaddafi had made it to the southwestern desert oasis of Ghadames and was preparing to cross the border to Algeria, as many other members of the family would in later weeks. Saif and Mu'tassim were reported to be in the region of Bani Walid and Sirte, both loyalist strongholds. The three—Gaddafi, Mu'tassim, and Saif—exploited the environment of paranoia, calling in bold threats via satellite phone to a Syrian radio station. Few imagined that behind these threats, the Gaddafis were living a very precarious existence, traveling in small convoys from safe house to safe house.

Mahmoud Jibril recalled that “[a]nxiety was the principle motivator in [Gaddafi's] personality, and continues to be.... [I]t was an anxiety [rooted in fear for personal] security. I recall one time [Gaddafi] summoned me to meet with him. [I told him] the regime needed to provide for the development of the people, as this was the only path to true security. By acting otherwise, the regime was moving against the course of history.”
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Through early October, Gaddafi was still at large. The push to take his final redoubt in his hometown of Sirte was threatening to become an embarrassment. Sirte's resilience seemed an affront to both the rebels' conception of increasing potency and the myth that Gaddafi had no support left in the country. But his time was running short; on the early morning of October 20, as rebel forces took control of the last corners of the city, Gaddafi made or was pushed to make his final move.

The NTC appeared uncertain of Gaddafi's whereabouts almost to the end. In an interview on October 18, Jibril said he believed Gaddafi was himself “safely” well hidden in the southern Ubari Sand Sea, somewhere between the oases of Ghadames and Ghat.

Yet NTC forces on the ground sensed they were getting closer. Field reports noted “particularly strong resistance” in Sirte in the waning days of the battle for the city, leading some to suspect that “high-value” targets—perhaps Gaddafi himself—were present. Rebel officials indicated that Mu'tassim had been sighted in Sirte more than three weeks previously.
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A few days before Gaddafi's death, rebel commanders claimed to have narrowed Saif 's location to an area of desert southeast of Tripoli.
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All the same, the fact that Gaddafi was not far away, in Sirte, seemed to come as a great surprise to many, just as unlikely as the notion that Saif would become “lost” in the desert, with a few aides, disguised as a camel-herder.

According to sources in communication with members of Gaddafi's entourage in the hours and days before his death, the circumstances behind Gaddafi's last days were less than heroic. His minders had been reduced to foraging through abandoned houses to feed Gaddafi, who by this point was virtually incoherent. Gaddafi was said to have wandered through rubble of Sirte with his satellite phone, speaking mostly to his daughter Ayesha.
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The atmosphere within Gaddafi's traveling circle had been contentious for days, if not longer. Most of those present or in communication with Gaddafi, including Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi's driver Huneish Nasr, and bodyguard Mansour Dao, pleaded with the Leader to leave. Sirte would inevitably be taken, they said, and there was no easy exit.
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Mu'tassim meanwhile insisted that the group stay in Sirte on the grounds that this would be the last place rebels and NATO forces would look for them.

As the rebel militias came closer—and fighting was raging around them—the decision was made. Gaddafi and a number of the remaining loyalist forces left Sirte proper before dawn on October 20.

Disarray in the camp forced a delay until 8:30 a.m. Many of the remaining loyalist forces banded together in this convoy, which was far larger and thus more obvious than the four or five 4x4s Gaddafi had traveled in since leaving Tripoli September 20. Britain's Sky News reported 175 cars in the convoy.
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The events that followed, leading up to the demise of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, came quickly, brutishly, and in the eyes of many on the outside, distastefully.

A US Predator drone, piloted from a control site in Las Vegas, spotted Gaddafi's convoy. A French Mirage received the drone's information and bombed the group, destroying one or two cars out of literally dozens. Gaddafi and key members of his group—including Mu'tassim and former Minister of Defense Abu Bakr Younes—exited their vehicles to seek cover on foot.
According to eyewitnesses, members of one of the Misuratan militias who had led the push for Sirte, set upon the remaining stragglers, executing most of them—by one account, more than a hundred people—on the spot.
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Among the few survivors were two of Abu Bakr Younes's sons, who were severely beaten but spared, only to wind up in a Misuratan detention center for months.
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Eyewitness accounts differ from official reports, which claim that most of those in the convoy were killed by aircraft-launched weapons.
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Some of what happened next was broadcast via numerous cellphone recordings. Gaddafi was said to have found refuge in a drainage pipe, when a group of young rebels found him and killed one or more of his bodyguards. In characteristic defiance or confusion, he said, alternately, “What's happening?” “You are my sons.” “Show me mercy.” “Don't kill my sons.” Then, “
Haram Aliekum
” (shame on you all), to which one of the rebels present responded, “You don't know the meaning of shame.”
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Gaddafi was then jostled around by excited rebels, at one point touching his hand to his chest and appearing to be shocked by the sight of his own blood. The mob pulled his hair and hit him. One of his tormenters yelled, “This is for Misurata,” before delivering a blow. According to the cellphone videos, Gaddafi put up a weak fight, stumbling as he went, until he was hoisted onto the hood of a 4x4. An unidentified rebel fighter pinned him down, while pressing against him with shoes, a sign of high disrespect in Arab culture.
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Someone said, “We need him alive,” and he was taken toward a waiting ambulance to be transported to Misurata. The last images available publicly show a beaten Gaddafi, a bullet hole clearly visible in his forehead.

The driver of the ambulance later said Gaddafi was dead when he first saw him. Others claimed later to know who shot him. NTC members subsequently all but acknowledged that rebels had killed him, perhaps in a dispute between members of different units, one from Benghazi and one from Misurata, each of whom wanted to take him to their leaders. Others claimed less convincingly that Gaddafi was shot on orders from abroad in order to make sure he did not reveal embarrassing information at a prospective trial. After the deed was done, one of the militiamen picked up Gaddafi's satellite phone—Ayesha was said to have been on the other end—and announced “Abu Shafshufa (a rebel moniker for Gaddafi, meaning, effectively, man with the wild hair) is dead!”

In a display of poor taste, which was defended by several senior members of the NTC, for nearly a week, the bodies of Gaddafi and son Mu'tassim were displayed side by side in a frozen-foods locker at a butcher shop in a
Misurata shopping center. A long line of visitors, including many children, came to view the bodies, perhaps seeking some sense of closure.

“We have been waiting for this historic moment for a long time. Muammar Gadhafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril announced on October 20. Some Libyans said they detected a note of sadness in his voice. Speaking from Benghazi, Abdeljalil expressed his regret that Gaddafi had not been brought to trial. President Barack Obama said to the Libyan people, “You have won your revolution.”
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While NTC officials expressed some regret over the circumstances of Gaddafi's death, the vast majority of the population did not seem concerned for the details, other than to say they were relieved that this chapter in their history was finally over.

Even so, the battle for Sirte continued. Pacifying Sirte remained important for several reasons; first and foremost it was Gaddafi's
muscat ra's
, his hometown and home base. Libya thus could not be considered free of Gaddafi or his influence until Sirte also fell. This focus on Sirte conveniently sidestepped the problem of ongoing violence in other pro-Gaddafi strongholds, such as Bani Walid, which would be dealt with later.

In death, as in life, Gaddafi continued to sow dissent—as his family demanded the NTC force the Misuratan militias to turn his body over to his tribe. Ultimately, four religious leaders were chosen to preside over a burial ceremony held somewhere in the Sahara, after swearing never to reveal the location.

While some details of Sadiq Neihoum's fable, the Sultan's Flotilla, the last paragraph of which is quoted at the start of the chapter, are irrelevant to Gaddafi's end—Gaddafi did not escape on a boat, nor is Sirte anywhere near Jalo—the fable continues to resonate on multiple planes: The Sultan's flotilla is a striking metaphor for Gaddafi's failed reform process; it had a positive result, from the perspective of the revolutionaries, but not for those to whom it was packaged as a solution. The desert storm (the revolution) was catastrophic, but it passed, and Jalo was left standing. The Sultan and his circle, however, were no more. As per the moral of the story, Gaddafi had indeed turned his back on the people of Libya (Jalo), and they, in the end, and euphemistically, turned their back on him.

Any doubt about whether loyalist forces had perpetrated atrocities was definitely laid to rest with the discovery of a series of mass graves, some fresh, some older. According to one source, a large number of youth were
discovered—many still alive—soldered inside shipping containers in the coastal town of Homs and Tripoli, and left to asphyxiate. Human Rights Watch documented eighteen deaths in this case, along with the apparent execution of forty-five detainees by members of the Khamis Brigade just before the fall of Tripoli in August.
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Mass graves were discovered in the upscale Gargaresh neighborhood, containing two hundred to three hundred bodies; according to a rebel commander, another seven hundred had been found near Abu Selim prison.
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More newly dug graves were discovered in Derna, east of Benghazi. In late February, early March, 157 bodies, civilians and armed rebels, were discovered in the eastern town of Bin Jawad, on the coastal road to Benghazi.
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Mohammed Bin Lamin, the artist captured early in the conflict, described his eight-month detention and testified to HRW that only a fraction of those apprehended and placed in Abu Selim at the beginning of the conflict survived to the liberation of Tripoli. The extent of the tragedy of the
mafqoodeen
, or “missing” is highlighted by the fact that the NTC formed a Ministry of Martyrs, Wounded and Missing Persons, charged with finding and identifying officially seven thousand individuals still unaccounted for.
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While few Libyans—and few in the broader international community—expressed public regret for the manner in which Gaddafi died, questions arose quickly regarding the timing of Secretary Clinton's visit to Tripoli the day before Gaddafi's death. Clinton was asked in a subsequent interview if there was any connection between her visit and Gaddafi's demise. She said no, followed by a sarcastic “I'm sure it did.” A YouTube video captured the moment when Clinton was informed Gaddafi had been killed. “We came, we saw, he died,” the secretary quipped.
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It is certainly possible that the US or NATO knew Gaddafi was in Sirte: his satellite phone communications would have left some trace. Various possible motivations have been given for a conscious delay in capturing Gaddafi and his children, including the desire to push them out of Libya so they could be arrested and put into custody of the International Crisis Group. Another strategy was to hedge or buy time to arrange a deal if the situation—particularly that with the Islamists—seemed to be getting out of hand.
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As with almost everything related to the situation in Libya over the previous nine months, mild conspiracy theories surfaced that were supported by high-level Libyans and some of the more credible international media. Mahmoud Jibril was quoted as saying he was reasonably sure Gaddafi's killing had been ordered from outside Libya.
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