Killing of Saif Al Arab Gaddafi didn’t matter much for Libyan leadership

TRIPOLI: Saif- al-Arab Gaddafi was killed by NATO airstrike on Saturday, if it was an attempt to damage the Libyan leadership; it removed only the youngest and least influential of Muammar Gaddafi’s eight children.

Last Tuesday NATO has made several airstrikes on the compound and surrounding area. Two missiles hit suspected bunkers within the walls, killing three people and wounding 45, according to Libyan officials.

Though the UN resolution imposing sanctions against senior Gaddafi figures cited the military appointments and repressive activities of several of his siblings, for Saif al-Arab, 29, it cited only his parentage and his “closeness of association with the regime”.

They did not freeze his assets, suggesting that he was not regarded as a major target.

Saif al-Arab was four when he was hurt in the 1986 air raid ordered by US president Ronald Reagan as a reprisal for the terrorist bombing of a German disco. He spent much of his adult life in Germany, where he was a student at the Technical University of Munich. He returned to Tripoli in February.

In 2006, he got into a brawl when his girlfriend was thrown out of a Munich nightclub for doing an impromptu striptease. The following year he was suspected of attempting to smuggle a rifle, revolver and munitions from Munich to Paris in a car with diplomatic numberplates. The case was dropped because no weapons were found.

Gaddafi has seven sons and one daughter by two wives. He married Fatiha, a teacher, within months of his 1969 coup. He is said to have met his second wife, Safia Farkash, a nurse, at the birth of his first child, Mohammed, who is now 40. Mohammed is head of the Libyan Olympic committee and not tipped as his father’s successor.

Saif al-Islam, 38, the dictator’s second son, is the most prominent. He studied at the London School of Economics and was seen as a moderniser but has vowed that the regime will “fight to the last bullet”.

Saadi, also 38, is the commander of Libya’s special forces, which have been implicated in some of the most brutal fighting. For years he lived in Italy, spending a brief time as a footballer.

Hannibal, 35, was appointed to a senior role on Libya’s National Maritime Transport Company after earning an MBA in Copenhagen.

Mutassim, born in 1976, was an army officer who is reported to have briefly sought exile in Egypt after being implicated in a coup attempt against his father, but on his return, he was appointed National Security Adviser.

Khamis, born in 1980, is commander of the 32nd Reinforced Brigade, one of Libya’s best special forces units. At the start of the uprising there were reports he had been killed.

Little is known of Milad, the nephew and adopted son who Gaddafi credits with saving his life in 1986. Aisha, his only natural daughter, is a lawyer and, until the uprising, a UN goodwill ambassador.