Since the early s, a cadre of 30 women have guarded and at times taken bullets for the man. The women have been a steadfast presence behind Gaddafi on all his foreign travels.
Rumours have it that these guards had to pledge oaths of loyalty to the dictator including a vow of virginity. Known for his female body guards besides his other crimes -- we are rather interested to know who they might be guarding next! Dressed in camouflage, nail polish, thick mascara and rather snazzy war boots and shades, the women added some glamour to the otherwise rather bleak Libyan socio-political scenario.
Home Photos News. Gaddafi's female bodyguards. Two months after he was driven away from power and into hiding, former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has died; thus ending the nearly year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom. A 'flamboyant' Colonel Gaddafi, frequently pictured with female bodyguards, said women were not equal to men because they were biologically different, but he nevertheless exhibited them as a symbol of the success of the Libyan revolution.
None had a higher profile than his phalanx of female bodyguards, who wore camouflage fatigues, red nail polish and high-heeled sandals, and carried submachine guns. Here's a look at the women who became synonymous with Gaddafi's political reign.
On the night of 20 August, as Tripoli burned, she says she was ordered by a male Gaddafi soldier to shoot dead three rebels. She said she did as she was told in order to save her own life. Which is better? Sitting next to her in the Jadida prison in Tripoli's east are two other women, also part of the 77 Brigade unit, known as Haris al-Shabi, with very different stories.
She was arrested in the loyalist stronghold of Abu Selim in one of the last battles for the capital, accused of running supplies to loyalist soldiers. She has the haunted eyes of a child who is utterly lost. And to fight if necessary. Sitting next to her is a rare woman in the new Libya — a diehard Gaddafi loyalist, who is happy to talk about her role as a leader of the 77 Brigade.
I loved him. It was my duty. But now it's over and I want to go home. The one area where Arun clearly differed from the ousted Libyan overlord was in how he chose his elite guard force. All three women sitting in the prison grounds wore conservative Islamic scarves, very unlike the female guards that Gaddafi used to travel with and often take abroad. There were around of them over 10 years.
Inside Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound, six low-set grey buildings with narrow slits for windows were where his private guards were based. Everything here has been looted or burned in recent weeks, and finding remnants of the girls in uniform is difficult.
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