Moammar Kadafi

In the modern pantheon of the world's dictators, Moammar Kadafi stood apart. Far apart. Erratic and mercurial, he fancied himself a political philosopher, practiced an unorthodox and deadly diplomacy, and cut a sometimes cartoonish figure in flowing robes and dark sunglasses, surrounded by heavily armed female bodyguards. He ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, bestowing on himself an array of titles, including "king of culture," "king of kings of Africa" and, simply, "leader of the revolution.

SABHA, Libya - Their fatigues don't match and their pickup has no windshield. Their antiaircraft gun, clogged with grit, is perched between a refugee camp and ripped market tents scattered over an ancient caravan route. But the tribesmen keep their rifles cocked and eyes fixed on a terrain of scouring light where the oasis succumbs to desert. "If we leave this outpost the Islamist militants will come and use Libya as a base. We can't let that happen," said Zakaria Ali Krayem, the oldest among the Tabu warriors.

In March, a few days after NATO planes began bombing Libya, Moammar Kadafi delivered a speech to the nation he had ruled for more than four decades. "Great Libyan people," he began, "you are now living through glorious hours. " In the speech, designed to rally Libyans with soaring rhetoric to stand against the rebellion and the foreign attacks, Kadafi ended with a promise. "We will defeat them by any means.... We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one....

Libya must hand over its former intelligence chief under ousted strongman Moammar Kadafi, the International Criminal Court has ordered. The push to surrender Abdullah Senussi  is the latest turn in the tug-of-war over where Kadafi insiders will stand trial for crimes against humanity. Libya wants its own courts to try Senussi and Seif Islam Kadafi, son of the slain leader, arguing that bringing the two to justice would be a historic step for the country. The Hague tribunal is supposed to be a court of last resort, only handling cases that countries are unwilling or unable to handle themselves.

U.S. Navy jets, while on training exercises over the Mediterranean on Wednesday, shot down two Libyan MIG-23 fighters when the Libyans appeared to threaten the U.S. warplanes, American officials said. The incident, which occurred about noon local time (2 a.m. PST) in international airspace, comes at a time of increasing U.S. hostility toward Libya over that nation's construction of what U.S. officials charge is a chemical weapons plant near the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

It was to be a human shield, a massive gathering of Moammar Kadafi's supporters at his Bab Azizia compound, and the Libyan leader was to give a late-night speech of defiance against the international forces arrayed against him. They would stand by their beloved Brother Leader at the same compound destroyed by President Reagan's airstrikes in 1986. Even if the bombs came sailing down. Even if the entire place went up in flames. "I'm here to support Moammar Kadafi and to oppose the threats of the West," said Ghazal Muftah, a 52-year-old grandmother in a camouflage army jacket and hijab , or head scarf, among about 400 or so gathered around the ruler's vast and well-protected residence.

Moammar Kadafi's warplanes bombed a military airport in Benghazi on Wednesday, the first assault on the eastern rebel stronghold since a revolt by inexperienced fighters with looted weapons began one month ago in an attempt to topple the Libyan leader. The airport attack came as government troops moved to tighten their grip on Ajdabiya, 95 miles south of Benghazi, while rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades and traveling in speedboats fired on Libyan ships off the Mediterranean coast.

The spectacle of Moammar Kadafi's capture at the mouth of a drain pipe and death in the custody of those he long oppressed thrilled Libyans but left a sense of unease about the nation's ability to emerge from his violent legacy. Kadafi's death Thursday in his hometown, the coastal city of Surt, spared Libyans the prospect that the only leader most had ever known would continue exhorting die-hard followers to fight. Few believed that, two months after he had been chased from his capital, Kadafi was in a position to make a comeback.

Moammar Kadafi's whereabouts remained a mystery Wednesday, a day after reports of a southbound desert convoy raised suspicion that the deposed Libyan leader might be seeking sanctuary in sub-Saharan Africa. Officials of Libya's rebel administration have given contradictory statements about Kadafi's whereabouts in recent days, a pattern that continued Wednesday. One rebel military official told the Associated Press that Kadafi was cornered, while another military aide said the rebels didn't know the ex-leader's whereabouts.

Moammar Kadafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, about $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, according to senior Libyan officials. The new estimates of the deposed dictator's hidden cash, gold reserves and investments are "staggering," one person who has studied detailed records of the asset search said Friday.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Naima Naggar stood in a Tripoli polling station Saturday, her index finger stained with indelible ink as she voted in Libya's first free elections in decades hoping to heal tribal divisions and bring this battered nation closer to democracy. She and other Libyans voted in high spirits to move beyond last year's civil war and the late Moammar Kadafi's 42-year repressive rule. Yet distrust and tension hang over the country, which has been marked by lawlessness and political schisms fueled by heavily armed militias.

  Amal Zuhair's hijab is pushed back, revealing a strip of hair that to her traditionalist elders is a provocation, much like her fondness for rock music. She says she feels like two people: "I leave myself at home whenever I go outside. I am this other thing, this pretend person they want me to be. " Zuhair's struggle with her identity mirrors a broader quest in Libya as the country tries to recover from the four-decade rule of Moammar Kadafi, whose Arab nationalist regime long repressed minority cultures.

Speaking from what he apparently considers a position of strength, Syrian President Bashar Assad this week condemned the "terrorists," "traitors" and "outsiders" he said were leading the 10-month-old uprising against him and threatened to strike his enemies with an "iron fist. " Preventing such an offensive by the regime, which has complied only fitfully with a demand by the Arab League that it restrain itself, will be difficult. But the Arab League and the United Nations can and must do more to minimize the violence and brutal repression in Syria, which has continued unabated since the uprising began.

It was a bad year for the villains of the world. Three of the biggest bad guys met their ends: Osama bin Laden, killed by U.S. commandos who stormed his villa in Pakistan in May; Moammar Kadafi, killed by Libyan insurgents who captured him (with the help of a NATO airstrike) in October; and Kim Jong Il, the ruler of North Korea, who died Dec. 17, reportedly of a heart attack. Bin Laden was the most important. Americans remember him, of course, as the architect of the terrorist attacks of Sept.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, on his first visit to Libya since the fall of Moammar Kadafi, warned that its government faces "a long and difficult transition" as it seeks to bring militias and tribes under its control. The new government in Tripoli has struggled to disarm the disparate forces that ousted Kadafi with NATO backing two months ago, raising fears of further factional fighting. It is a tall order for a country whose institutions withered under Kadafi and whose government buildings were widely damaged in the eight-month uprising, including by NATO bombing.

Weary of continuing gunfire in the streets of the capital, Libya's interim government has given notice to out-of-town militias to hand in their weapons and leave Tripoli in order to help steer the country toward civilian rule. Militias have until Dec. 20 to leave, said Abdul-Rafik Bu Hajjar, head of the Tripoli municipal council, threatening to ban all traffic except vehicles from the Interior and Defense ministries if the militias fail to comply. His order has the backing of the new prime minister, Abdel-Rahim Keeb.

The international police agency, Interpol, on Thursday placed Moammar Kadafi's son Saadi on its most wanted list, where he joins his father, an elder brother and an uncle as hunted men. Unlike the other wanted Kadafi kin, whose whereabouts remain a mystery, Saadi Kadafi is known to have taken refuge in neighboring Niger, a country caught between a longtime allegiance to Kadafi and an unease with serving as a haven for the deposed Libyan leader's...

Leaders of the European Union on Friday unanimously called on Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi to give up power and said they would examine "all necessary options" to protect Libyan civilians from attack. But the declaration did not move the 27-member bloc closer to intervening militarily in the conflict, despite urging by nations such as France and Britain to consider establishing a no-fly zone over the North African nation. EU leaders were gathered in Brussels for an unusual emergency summit to discuss the events unfolding in Libya.

Mexican authorities announced Wednesday that they had busted an international smuggling ring that was planning to sneak a son of Moammar Kadafi into Mexico, where he was to be ensconced in a ritzy oceanfront estate. Saadi Kadafi, the 38-year-old son of the deposed and slain dictator, and three relatives were to travel to Mexico using falsified documents that gave them new names and Mexican citizenship, authorities said. The plot involved a network of safe houses, illicit bank accounts and private jets crisscrossing the globe from the Middle East to Kosovo to Canada, said Alejandro Poire, Mexico's interior minister.

Libya's interim prime minister on Tuesday unveiled a new Cabinet apparently assembled with an eye to subduing regional factions, which have grown increasingly adversarial in the scramble for power since the overthrow of longtime strongman Moammar Kadafi. The new political leadership, which will run Libya until elections are held next year, faces the daunting task of creating a workable government and uniting a country ravaged by war and 42 years of dictatorial rule. "All of Libya is represented," Prime Minister Abdel-Rahim Keeb told a news conference in the capital, Tripoli.