Gaddafi: Libya's flamboyant, Bedouin dictator

With his penchant for Bedouin tents and heavily armed female bodyguards, along with a readiness to execute his opponents, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has cut a disturbing figure as Libya's leader for more than 40 years.

One of the world's longest-serving national leaders, Gaddafi has no official government function and is known as the "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution." May 23, 1976: Colonel Muammar al Gaddafi, the Libyan political and military leader who returned the country to the fundamental principles of Islam. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Middle-Eastern leaders in Cairo for talks on the situation in Jordan, September 1970. Left to right: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (1904 - 1975), President Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, President Abdul Rahman Iryani (1910 - 1998) of the Yemen Arab Republic and President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918 - 1970) of Egypt. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

May 23, 1976: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, shaking hands with Maltese people during a rally at Cospicua. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) For most of the time he ruled, he held a prominent position in the West's international rogues' gallery, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to anoint a successor.

His love of the grand gesture is most on display on foreign visits when he sleeps in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards. During a visit to Italy last August, Gaddafi's invitation to hundreds of young women to convert to Islam overshadowed the two day trip. April 1979: Libyan head of state Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

US diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website have shed further light on the Libyan leader%u2019s tastes. Libyan political and military leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Majorca, Spain. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

One cable describes his insistence on staying on the first floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps. He does not like to fly over water. Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, February 1985. (Photo by Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Gaddafi was born in 1942, the son of a Bedouin herdsman, in a tent near Sirte on the Mediterranean coast. He abandoned a geography course at university for a military career. A Libyan hand holds a crushed US fighter jet in this sculpture located on the grounds of Libyan leader Gaddafi's compound February 1, 2001 in Tripoli. The compound is seen damaged as the result of a 1986 US bombing raid. (Photograph by Courtney Kealy/Newsmakers)

The young officer took power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 when he toppled King Idris, and in the 1970s he formulated his 'Third Universal Theory,' a middle road between communism and capitalism. In this photo, Lockerbie bombing defendant Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, left, speaks to the media with Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi after arriving in the capital Tripoli February 1, 2001, a day after being acquitted in the Lockerbie bombing trial. Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, Fhimah's co-defendant in the trial for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, was found guilty by a Scottish court and sentenced to life in prison. (Photograph by Courtney Kealy/Newsmakers)

He was particularly reviled after the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Libyan agents in which 270 people were killed. In this photo, Colonel Muammar al Gaddafi tells reporters February 5, 2001 that the guilty verdict of Abdel Baset Ali Megrahi in the Pam Am Flight 103 bombing trial was a farce and trivialized the evidence used to convict him. Qadhafi spoke at his compound--that was bombed by the US in 1986 - in Tripoli, Libya. Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 killing 270 people. (Photo by Courtney Kealy/Newsmakers)

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi tells reporters February 5, 2001 that the guilty verdict of Abdel Baset Ali Megrahi in the Pam Am Flight 103 bombing trial was a farce and trivialized the evidence used to convict him. Qadhafi spoke at his compound - that was bombed by the US in 1986 - in Tripoli, Libya. Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 killing 270 people. (Photo by Courtney Kealy/Newsmakers)

He has overseen the rapid development of his poverty-stricken country. One of his first tasks was to build up the armed forces, but he also spent billions of dollars on improving living standards, making him popular with the low-paid. In this photo, Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, left, greets Jordan's King Abdullah February 11, 2001 in Tripoli. (Photo by Newsmakers)

He has poured money into giant projects such as a steel plant in Misrata and the Great Man-Made River, a scheme to pipe water from desert wells to coastal communities. In this photo, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al Gaddafi attends the first day of the Arab Summit March 27, 2001 in Amman, Jordan. (Photo by Salah Malkawi/Newsmakers)

Gaddafi abandoned his programme of prohibited weapons in 2003 to return Libya into international mainstream politics. In this photo, Egyptian security guards prevent a female private guard of Libyan President Gaddafi from entering the summit hall in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt March 01, 2003. (Photo by Salah Malkawi/Getty Images)

In September 2004, US President George W Bush formally ended a US trade embargo as a result of Gaddafi's scrapping of the arms programme and taking responsibility for Lockerbie. In this photo, Libyan leader Gaddafi talks at the European Commission on April 27, 2004 in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)

Libyan President Gaddafi (R) attends a dinner French President Jacques Chirac November 24, 2004 in Tripoli, Libya. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Gaddafi has clamped down on dissent, using "purification committees" of army and police officers, joined by loyal students, to keep control. In this photo, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (L) embraces Gaddafi after a meeting on May 29, 2007 in Sirte, Libya. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Gaddafi has won the respect of many Libyans. He is a charismatic figure with the popular touch and has exploited the medium of television unlike other Arab leaders. In this photo, Vladimir Putin of Russia meets with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on April 16, 2008 in Tripoli, Libya. (Photo by Artyom Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images)

Gaddafi embraced the pan-Arabism of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and tried without success to merge Libya, Egypt and Syria into a federation. A similar attempt to join Libya and Tunisia ended in acrimony. In this photo, Vladimir Putin of Russia (C) meets with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) on April 16, 2008 in Tripoli, Libya. (Photo by Artyom Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images)

In 1977 he changed the country's name to the Great Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah (State of the Masses) and allowed people to air their views at people's congresses. In this photo, Libya's leader Gaddafi attends a meeting with former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano at the Quirinale Palace on June 10, 2009 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

He was shunned by the West for much of his rule which accused him of links to terrorism and revolutionary movements. US President Ronald Reagan called him a "mad dog" and sent war planes to bomb Libya in 1986. One of the 60 people killed was Gaddafi's adopted daughter. In this photo, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) shakes hands with US President Barack Obama during the G8 summit on July 9, 2009 in L'Aquila, Italy. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Libyan leader Gaddafi addresses the 64th General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters on September 23, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

Libyan leader Gaddafi arrives at Ciampino airport on August 29, 2010 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images)

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shakes hands with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a photo exhibition at the Libyan Academy on August 30, 2010 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images)

Protesters demonstrate outside the Libyan embassy on February 21, 2011 in London, England. Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year leadership of Libya is becoming increasingly unstable following violent protests in the Libyan capital Tripoli. Reports claim several senior Libyan officials have resigned after security forces shot at Tripoli protesters. Human Rights Watch claim over 233 people have died in protests across the country. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)