Muammar Gaddafi was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until his assassination in 2011 by rebel forces. Born Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, he was de facto leader of Libya, first as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Colonel Gaddafi later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.
