Muammar Qaddafi at left centre, no white borders at top and bottom. Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He governed Libya 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. He was initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism but later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.
