News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

Etymology

One theory claims that the English word "news" developed in the 14th century as a special use of the plural form of "new". In Middle English, the equivalent word was ''newes'', like the French ''nouvelles'' and the German ''neues''. Similar developments are found in the Slavic languages – the Czech and Slovak ''noviny'' (from ''nový'', "new"), the cognate Polish ''nowiny'' and Russian ''novosti'' – and in the Celtic languages: the Welsh ''newyddion'' (from ''newydd'') and the Cornish ''nowodhow'' (from ''nowydh'').

History

Before the invention of newspapers in the early 17th century, official government bulletins and edicts were circulated at times in some centralized empires.

The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have been built on a pre-existing infrastructure.

In Ancient Rome, ''Acta Diurna'', or government announcement bulletins, were made public by Julius Caesar. They were carved in metal or stone and posted in public places.

In China, early government-produced news sheets, called tipao, circulated among court officials during the late Han dynasty (second and third centuries AD). Between 713 and 734, the ''Kaiyuan Za Bao'' ("Bulletin of the Court") of the Chinese Tang Dynasty published government news; it was handwritten on silk and read by government officials. In 1582 there was the first reference to privately published newssheets in Beijing, during the late Ming Dynasty;

In Early modern Europe, increased cross-border interaction created a rising need for information which was met by concise handwritten newssheets. In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly ''Notizie scritte'', which cost one gazetta. These avvisi were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently to Italian cities (1500–1700) — sharing some characteristics of newspapers though usually not considered true newspapers. Due to low literacy rates, news was at times disseminated by town criers.

Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, from 1605, is recognized as the world's first newspaper.

The oldest news agency is the Agence France-Presse (AFP). It was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas.

In modern times, printed news had to be phoned in to a newsroom or brought there by a reporter, where it was typed and either transmitted over wire services or edited and manually set in type along with other news stories for a specific edition. Today, the term "breaking news" has become trite as commercial broadcasting United States cable news services that are available 24-hours a day use live satellite technology to bring current events into consumers' homes as the event occurs. Events that used to take hours or days to become common knowledge in towns or in nations are fed instantaneously to consumers via radio, television, mobile phone, and the Internet.

Newspapers

Most large cities in the United States historically had morning and afternoon newspapers. As the media evolved and news outlets increased to the point of near over-saturation, most afternoon newspapers were shut down. Morning newspapers have been gradually losing circulation, according to reports advanced by the papers themselves. Commonly, news content should contain the "Five Ws" (who, what, when, where, why, and also how) of an event. There should be no questions remaining. Newspapers normally place hard news stories on the first pages, so the most important information is at the beginning. Busy readers can read as little or as much as they desire. Local stations and networks with a set format must take news stories and break them down into the most important aspects due to time constraints. Cable news channels such as BBC News, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, are able to take advantage of a story, sacrificing other, decidedly less important stories, and giving as much detail about breaking news as possible.

News organizations are often expected to aim for objectivity; reporters claim to try to cover all sides of an issue without bias, as compared to commentators or analysts, who provide opinion or personal point-of-view. Several governments impose certain constraints or police news organizations against bias. In the United Kingdom, for example, limits are set by the government agency Ofcom, the Office of Communications. Both newspapers and broadcast news programs in the United States are generally expected to remain neutral and avoid bias except for clearly indicated editorial articles or segments. Many single-party governments have operated state-run news organizations, which may present the government's views.

Even in those situations where objectivity is expected, it is difficult to achieve, and individual journalists may fall foul of their own personal bias, or succumb to commercial or political pressure. Similarly, the objectivity of news organizations owned by conglomerated corporations fairly may be questioned, in light of the natural incentive for such groups to report news in a manner intended to advance the conglomerate's financial interests. Individuals and organizations who are the subject of news reports may use news management techniques to try to make a favourable impression. Because each individual has a particular point of view, it is recognized that there can be no absolute objectivity in news reporting.

Newsworthiness

Newsworthiness is defined as a subject having sufficient relevance to the public or a special audience to warrant press attention or coverage.

In some countries and at some points in history, what news media and the public have considered "newsworthy" has met different definitions, such as the notion of news values. For example, mid-twentieth-century news reporting in the United States focused on political and local issues with important socio-economic impacts, such as the landing of a living person on the moon or the cold war. More recently, the focus similarly remains on political and local issues; however, the news mass media now comes under criticism for over-emphasis on "non-news" and "gossip" such as celebrities' personal social issues, local issues of little merit, as well as biased sensationalism of political topics such as terrorism and the economy. The dominance of celebrity and social news, the blurring of the boundary between news and reality shows and other popular culture, and the advent of citizen journalism may suggest that the nature of ‘news’ and news values are evolving and that traditional models of the news process are now only partially relevant. Newsworthiness does not only depend on the topic, but also the presentation of the topic and the selection of information from that topic. Daily trends update

New ecology of news

“Everything we thought we once knew about journalism needs to be rethought in the Digital Age”, professor of Sociology and Communication Michael Schudson points out. Today the work of journalism can be done from anywhere and done well. It requires no more than a reporter and a laptop. In that way, journalistic authority seems to have become more individual- and less institution-based. But does the individual reporter always have to be an actual journalist? Or can journalistic work be done from anywhere and by anyone? These are questions that refers to the core of journalistic practice and the definition of “news” itself. As Schudson has given emphasis to, the answer is not easily found; “the ground journalists walk upon is shaking, and the experience for both those who work in the field and those on the outside studying it is dizzying”.

Schudson has identified the following six specific areas where the ecology of news in his opinion has changed: 1. The line between the reader and writer has blurred 2. The distinction among tweet, blog post, newspaper story, magazine article, and book as blurred 3. The line between professionals and amateurs has blurred, and a variety of “pro-am” relationships has emerged 4. The boundaries delineating for-profit, public, and non-profit media have blurred, and the cooperation across these models of financing has developed 5. Within commercial news organizations, the line between the news room and the business office has blurred 6. The line between old media and new media has blurred, practically beyond recognition

These alterations inevitably has fundamental ramifications for the contemporary ecology of news. “The boundaries of journalism, which just a few years ago seemed relatively clear, and permanent, have become less distinct, and this blurring, while potentially the foundation of progress even as it is the source of risk, has given rise to a new set of journalistic principles and practices”, Schudson puts it. It is indeed complex, but it seems to be the future.

See also

References

Further reading

Stephens, Mitchell. "The History of News - 3rd Ed" Oxford University Press, New York, 2007.

External links

Category:Television terminology

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data2	Middle East: Arabic, Aramaic, Azerbaijani, French, Greek, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, TurkishGreater Middle East: Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Dari, French, Greek, Georgian, Hebrew, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Somali, Tamazight, Tigrinya, Turkish, Urdu
label3	Time Zones
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The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East. The corresponding adjective is ''Middle-Eastern'' and the derived noun is ''Middle-Easterner''.

The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, and throughout its history, the Middle East has been a major centre of world affairs. When discussing ancient history, however, the term Near East is more commonly used. The Middle East is also the historical origin of major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Middle East generally has an arid and hot climate, with several major rivers providing for irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas. Many countries located around the Persian Gulf have large quantities of crude oil. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region. The Middle East expected economic growth rate is at about 4.1% for 2010 and 5.1% in 2011.

Etymology

The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office. However, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to 'designate the area between Arabia and India'. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry which would become known as The Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East, and said that after the Suez Canal, it was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India. Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations," published in September 1902 in the ''National Review'', a British journal.

The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar; it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. Naval force has the quality of mobility which carries with it the privilege of temporary absences; but it needs to find on every scene of operation established bases of refit, of supply, and in case of disaster, of security. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, and the Persian Gulf.

Mahan's article was reprinted in ''The Times'' and followed in October by a 20 article series entitled "The Middle Eastern Question," written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of ''Middle East'' to include "those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India." After the series ended in 1903, ''The Times'' removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term.

Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centered around Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the "Near East", while the "Far East" centered on China, and the Middle East then meant the area from Mesopotamia to Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term "Middle East" gained broader usage in Europe and the United States, with the Middle East Institute founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946, among other usage.

Criticism and usage

[[File:Greater Middle East (orthographic projection).svg|300px|thumb| ]] Many have criticized the term ''Middle East'' because of its implicit Eurocentrism. In contemporary English-language academic & media venues, the term is used by both Europeans and non-Europeans.

The description ''Middle'' has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" referred to Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, and the Caucasus. In contrast, "Far East" referred to the countries of East Asia (e.g. China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc.). Some critics usually advise using an alternative term, such as "Western Asia", which is the official designation used by the UN.

With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage of "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term ''Middle East'', which is not used by these disciplines (see Ancient Near East).

The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia." In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

The Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs:

Use ''Middle East'' unless ''Near East'' is used by a source in a story. ''Mideast'' is also acceptable, but ''Middle East'' is preferred.

At the United Nations, the numerous documents and resolutions about the Middle East are in fact concerned with the Arab–Israeli conflict, in particular the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and, therefore, with the four states of the Levant. The term Near East is occasionally heard at the UN when referring to this region.

Translations

There are terms similar to ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' in other European languages, but since it is a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are different from the English terms generally. In German the term ''Naher Osten'' (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term ''Mittlerer Osten'' is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning) and in Russian Ближний Восток or ''Blizhniy Vostok'', Bulgarian Близкия Изток, Polish ''Bliski Wschód'' or Croatian ''Bliski istok'' (meaning ''Near East'' in all the four Slavic languages) remains as the only appropriate term for the region. However, some languages do have "Middle East" equivalents, such as the French Moyen-Orient, Swedish Mellanöstern, Spanish Oriente Medio or Medio Oriente, and the Italian Medio Oriente.

Perhaps because of the influence of the Western press, the Arabic equivalent of ''Middle East'' (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط ''ash-sharq-l-awsat''), has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press, comprehending the same meaning as the term “Middle East” in North American and Western European usage. The designation, ''Mashriq'', also from the Arabic root for ''east'', also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the ''Maghreb'', the western part). The Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه (''Khāvarmiyāneh'').

Territories and regions

Traditional definition of the Middle East

Country, with flag

!colspan="2"

!rowspan="2"

!colspan="2"

!rowspan="2"

!rowspan="2"

Per capita

Currency

Government

Official languages

!km2 !!sq mi !!/km2!!/sq mi

Manama

$26.970 billion (2008)

$34,605 (2008)

Bahraini Dinar

Constitutional monarchy

Arabic

Nicosia

$22.703 billion (2008)

$29,830 (2008)

Euro (currency)

[[Presidential republic

Greek language

[[Cairo

$442.640 billion (2008)

$5,898 (2008)

Egyptian pound

Semi-presidential republic

Arabic

Tehran

$819.799 billion (2008)

$11,250 (2008)

Iranian rial

Islamic republic

Baghdad

$202.3 billion (2008)

$6,500 (2008)

Iraqi dinar

Parliamentary republic

Arabic, Syriac language

[[Jerusalem2

$200.630 billion (2008)

$28,206 (2008)

Israeli new sheqel

Parliamentary democracy

Hebrew, Arabic

Amman

$32.112 billion (2008)

$5,314 (2008)

Jordanian dinar

Constitutional monarchy

Arabic

Kuwait City

$137.190 billion (2008)

$39,849 (2008)

Kuwaiti dinar

Constitutional monarchy

Arabic

Beirut

$58.576 billion (2010)

$14,988 (2010)

Lebanese pound

Republic

$66.889 billion (2008)

$24,153 (2008)

Absolute monarchy

Arabic

'''' (not fully sovereign)

Gaza

$770 million (2008)

$2,900 (2008)

Israeli new sheqel

Autonomous republic Palestinian National Authority Hamas

Arabic

'''' (not fully sovereign)

3

3,4

Ramallah

Israeli new sheqel

Autonomous republic Palestinian National Authority Fatah

Arabic

Doha

$94.249 billion (2008)

$85,867 (2008)

Constitutional monarchy

Arabic

Riyadh

$593.385 billion (2008)

$23,834 (2008)

Absolute monarchy

Arabic

Damascus

$105.238 billion (2010)

$5,043 (2010)

Syrian pound

Presidential republic

Arabic

1

Ankara

$1.028 trillion (2008)

$13,920 (2008)

Parliamentary democracy

Abu Dhabi

$184.984 billion (2008)

$38,830 (2008)

UAE dirham

Arabic

Sanaá

$55.433 billion (2008)

$2,412 (2008)

Yemeni rial

Semi-presidential republic

Arabic

Source:

*International Monetary Fund, April 24, 2009, PPP GDP 2008

*World Bank, July 1, 2009, PPP GDP 2008

Notes:

1 The figures for Turkey includes Eastern Thrace, which is not a part of Anatolia.

2 Under Israeli law. The UN doesn't recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

3 Includes the whole of the West Bank, according to the pre-1967 boundaries.

4 In addition, there are around 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, of which half are in East-Jerusalem.

Greater Middle East

Country, with flag	!colspan="2"	!rowspan="2"	!colspan="2"	!rowspan="2"	!rowspan="2"	Per capita	Currency	Government	Official languages
!km2 !!sq mi !!/km2!!/sq mi
1				Kabul	$21.340 billion (2008)	$758 (2008)	Afghan afghani	Islamic republic
				Algiers	$233.098 billion (2008)	$6,698 (2008)	Algerian dinar	Semi-presidential republic
				Yerevan	$18.715 billion (2008)	$5,272 (2008)	Armenian dram	Semi-presidential republic
				Baku	$74.734 billion (2008)	$8,620 (2008)	Azerbaijani manat	Semi-presidential republic
					$772 million (2009)	$1,159 (2009)	Comorian franc	Federal republic	Comorian, Arabic, French
					$1.877 billion (2008)	$2,392 (2008)	Djiboutian franc	Parliamentary republic	Arabic, French, Somali, Afar
				Asmara	$3.739 billion (2008)	$747 (2008)		Provisional government
				Tbilisi	$21.812 billion (2008)	$4,957 (2008)	Georgian lari	Semi-presidential republic
				Astana	$177.545 billion (2008)	$11,416 (2008)	Kazakhstani tenge	Semi-presidential republic	Kazakh language
				[[Bishkek	$11.580 billion (2008)	$2,180 (2008)	Kyrgyzstani som	Semi-presidential republic	Kyrgyz language
				[[Tripoli	$90.251 billion (2008)	$14,533 (2008)	Libyan dinar	Jamahiriya
				Nouakchott	$6.221 billion (2008)	$2,052 (2008)		Military junta
				Rabat	$136.728 billion (2008)	$4,349 (2008)	Moroccan dirham	Constitutional monarchy
				Islamabad	$439.558 billion (2008)	$2,738 (2008)	Pakistani rupee	Islamic republic	Urdu language
				[[Mogadishu	$7.890 billion	$795	Somali shilling	Semi-presidential republic	Somali language
				[[Khartoum	$87.885 billion (2008)	$2,305 (2008)	Sudanese pound	Presidential republic	Arabic language
				[[Dushanbe	$13.041 billion (2008)	$2,019 (2008)	Somoni	Semi-presidential republic
				Tunis	$82.226 billion (2008)	$7,962 (2008)	Tunisian dinar	Semi-presidential republic
				Ashgabat	$30.091 billion (2008)	$5,710 (2008)	Turkmenistani manat
				Tashkent	$71.501 billion (2008)	$2,629 (2008)	Uzbekistani som	Semi-presidential republic
				El Aaiun			Moroccan dirham
	Source:			*International Monetary Fund, April 24, 2009, PPP GDP 2008	*World Bank, July 1, 2009, PPP GDP 2008				Notes:	1 Afghanistan is often considered Central Asian

History

The Middle East lies at the juncture of Eurasia and Africa and of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Bahá'í Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area.

The worlds earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia) and ancient Egypt, originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite, Greek and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor, Elam in pre Iranian Persia, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Ugarit Canaan, Aramea, Phoenicia and Israel), Persian and Median civilizations in Iran, North Africa(Carthage/Phonecia) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires, (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. However, it would be the later Arab Arab Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The Mongols, the Turkish Seljuk and Ottoman empires, the Safavids and British empire would also later dominate the region.

The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970's onwards.

In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries.

During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Of course, besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict and war.

Demographics

Ethnic groups

The Middle East is home to numerous ethnic groups, including; Arabs, Turks, Persians, Somalis, Jews, Kurds, Assyrians/Syriacs (Chaldo-Assyrians), Egyptian Copts, Maronites (Phoenicians), Armenians, Arameans, Azeris, Maltese, Circassians, Greeks, Turcomans, Shabaks, Yazidis, Mandeans, Georgians, Roma, Gagauz, Berbers, Mhallami and Samaritans.

Migration

According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations in the world, of which 5.8 reside in other Arab countries. Expatriates from Arab countries contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of 35.1 billion USD in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries.

Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Israel and Iran are also subject to important migration dynamics.

A fair proportion of those migrating from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing racial and or religious persecution and are not necessarily ethnic Arabs, Iranians or Turks. Large numbers of Kurds, Jews, Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians as well as many Mandeans have left nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey for these reasons during the last century. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians, Baha'i and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Religions

The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam in its many forms is by far the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. There are also important minority religions like Bahá'í, Yazdânism, Zoroastrianism, Mandeanism, Druze, Yarsan, Yazidism and Shabakism.

Languages

The three top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian and Turkish, representing the Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European, and Turkic language families, respectively. Various other languages are also spoken in the Middle East.

Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, being official in all the Arab countries. It is also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages.

Persian is the second most popular. While it is confined to Iran and some border areas in neghbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages.

The third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, it is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member or the Turkic languages, which have their origins in Central Asia.

Other languages spoken in the region include Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Mesopotamian Aramaic dialects spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandeans. Also to be found are Armenian, Azerbaijani, Berber, Circassian, smaller Iranian languages, Kurdish, smaller Turkic languages (such as Gagauz), Shabaki, Yazidi, Roma, Georgian, Greek, and several Modern South Arabian languages such as Geez. Maltese is also linguistically and geographically a middle eastern language.

English is commonly spoken as a second language, especially among the middle and upper classes, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. It is also a main language in some of the Emirates of the United Arab Emirates. French is spoken in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia. Urdu is widely spoken in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia (where 20-25% of the population is South Asian), the United Arab Emirates (where 50-55% of the population is South Asian), Israel, and Qatar, which have large numbers of Pakistani immigrants. The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East is found in Israel, where Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population. Russian is also spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, because of emigration in the late 1990s.

Economy

Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia). Overall, , according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth.

According to the World Bank's ''World Development Indicators'' database published on July 1, 2009, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in 2008 were Turkey ($ 794,228,000,000), Saudi Arabia ($ 467,601,000,000) and Iran ($ 385,143,000,000) in terms of Nominal GDP. In regards to nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($93,204), the UAE ($55,028), Kuwait ($45,920) and Cyprus ($32,745). Turkey ($ 1,028,897,000,000), Iran ($ 839,438,000,000) and Saudi Arabia ($ 589,531,000,000) had the largest economies in terms of GDP-PPP. When it comes to per capita (PPP)-based income, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($86,008), Kuwait ($39,915), the UAE ($38,894), Bahrain ($34,662) and Cyprus ($29,853). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of per capita income (PPP), is the autonomous Palestinian Authority of Gaza and the West Bank ($1,100).

The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different in the sense that while some nations are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the case of UAE and Bahrain.

With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions of the Middle East. In recent years, however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater number of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies.

Unemployment is notably high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among young people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region’s total population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2005, according to the International Labor Organization, was 13.2%, and among youth is as high as 25%, up to 37% in Morocco and 73% in Syria.

See also

History

List of conflicts in the Middle East

History of the Middle East

Timeline of Middle Eastern History

Regions

Greater Middle East

Near East

Fertile Crescent

Central Asia

Issues

Waithood

Orientalism

State feminism (section: Middle East)

Organizations, programs, and media

Middle East Institute

Middle East Studies Association of North America

Middle East Youth Initiative

Maayan Middle East poetry magazine

Strategic Foresight Group

Notes

References

External links

"Middle East - Articles by Region" - Council on Foreign Relations: "A Resource for Nonpartisan Research and Analysis"

"Middle East - Interactive Crisis Guide" - Council on Foreign Relations: "A Resource for Nonpartisan Research and Analysis"

Middle East Department University of Chicago Library

''Middle East Business Intelligence since 1957'': "The leading information source on business in the Middle East" - MEED.com

Middle East News from Yahoo! News

Middle East Business, Financial & Industry News — ''ArabianBusiness.com''

Category:Western Asia Category:North Africa Category:Geography of Western Asia

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Name	Osama bin Laden
Birth date	March 10, 1957
Birth place	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Death date	May 02, 2011
Death place	Abbottabad, Pakistan
Placeofburial	North Arabian Sea
Religion	Sunni Islam (Qutbism)
Years active	1979–2011
Death cause	Ballistic trauma
Successor	Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Spouse(s)	Najwa GhanhemKhadijah SharifKhairiah SabarSiham SabarAmal Ahmed al-Sadah
Children
Allegiance	Al-Qaeda
Serviceyears	1988–2011
Battles	Soviet war in AfghanistanWar on Terror: War in Afghanistan *Battle of Tora Bora War in North-West Pakistan *Operation Neptune Spear }}

}} Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (; , ''''; March 10, 1957 May 2, 2011) was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After being placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list, bin Laden remained in hiding during three U.S. presidential administrations. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs and CIA operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama. Shortly after his death, bin Laden's body was buried at sea. Al-Qaeda acknowledged his death on May 6, 2011, vowing to retaliate.

Early life and education

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.

Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and they are still together. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. One source described him as "hard working", another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Arsenal F.C.

Personal life

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; they were divorced before September 11, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s), Khairiah Sabar (married 1985), Siham Sabar (married 1987), and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.

Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.

The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft 4 in and 6 ft 6 in (193–198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall. Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.

Name

There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other U.S. governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin", both of which may be abbreviated as "UBL". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of ''bin'' is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions and articles uncapitalized in surnames; however, ''bin'' means "son of" and is not, strictly speaking, a preposition or article. The spellings with ''o'' and ''e'' come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.

Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to a more distant ancestor.

The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, ''āl-Qaḥṭānī''), but bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden never officially registered the name.

Osama bin Laden had also assumed the ''kunyah'' "Abū ʿAbdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, ''al-Amīr''), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, ''aš-Šayḫ''), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, ''al-Muǧāhid Šayḫ''), "Hajj" (حج, ''Ḥaǧǧ''), and the "Director". The word ''ʾusāmah'' (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".

Beliefs and ideology

According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East, condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are."

Bin Laden also said only the restoration of Sharia law would "set things right" in the Muslim world, and that alternatives such as "pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy" must be opposed. This belief, in conjunction with violent jihad, has sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states, the need to eliminate the state of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury", in an October 2002 letter.

Bin Laden's ideology included the idea that innocent civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad. Bin Laden was anti-Semitic, and delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with "heretics, [...] America, and Israel" as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.

Bin Laden opposed music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in "earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants" on the one hand, but rejected "chilled water" on the other.

His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from ''The New York Times'', the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.

Bin Laden's overall strategy against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy nation. Al-Qaeda manuals clearly outline this strategy.

Militant activity

Mujahideen in Afghanistan

After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan and joined Abdullah Azzam to take part in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. During Operation Cyclone from 1979 to 1989, the United States provided financial aid and weapons to the mujahideen leaders through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI.

By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and used it to train volunteer fighters against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It was during his time in Pakistan that he began wearing camouflage-print jackets and carrying a Russian-made assault rifle.

Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda

By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (''bayat'') to follow one's superiors.

According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because "its existence was still a closely held secret". His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between "several senior leaders" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the House of Saud at risk, with Iraqi forces on the Saudi border and Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism potentially inciting internal dissent. Bin Laden met with King Fahd, and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others, offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his mujahideen. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and after the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi territory, Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the U.S. military. Bin Laden believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led that government to attempt to silence him.

Shortly after Saudi Arabia invited U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia, bin Laden turned his attention to attacks on the West. On November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed, discovering copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York on November 5, 1990.

Bin Laden continued to speak publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, for which the Saudis banished him. He went to live in exile in Sudan, in 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed.

Sudan and return to Afghanistan

In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in the country he heavily invested in the infrastructure and in agriculture and businesses. He continued his verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and in response, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his $7 million a year stipend. By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.

As a result of his dealings in and advocacy of violent extremist jihad, Osama bin Laden lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994 and was disowned by his billionaire family.

Sudan also began efforts to expel bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission Report states:

In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in the Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding.

The 9/11 Commission Report further states:

In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both.

In May 1996, under increasing pressure on Sudan, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight, and there forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. When bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.

In August, 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. This fatwā was first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper. The fatwā is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā refers to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.

In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters.

Bin Laden effectively had hijacked Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a "terrorist taxi service".

Early attacks and aid for attacks

It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.

It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find their proper reward in death, going to ''Jannah'' (Paradise) if they were good Muslims and to ''Jahannam'' (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.

In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government.

Bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, but outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.

Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundreds of Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.

In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a ''fatwa'' in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip". At the public announcement of the fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."

Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998.

The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.

In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft.

At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000 which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman and tourists at Mount Nebo and a site on the Jordan River, the sinking of the destroyer USS ''The Sullivans'' in Yemen, as well as an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.

Yugoslav Wars

A former U.S. State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, after it was asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, ''Rzeczpospolita'', one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.

According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States of America. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.

A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997, report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ''The New York Times'' noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.

In 1999 it was revealed that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by the Bosnian government following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden "did not personally collect his Bosnian passport" and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.

During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević presented FBI documents that verified bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was identified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization shortly before the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.

September 11, 2001 attacks

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After his denial, Osama bin Laden finally claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States in 2004. The attacks involved the hijacking of four commercial passenger aircraft, the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the deaths of 2,974 people and the nineteen hijackers. In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report notes that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient for a prosecutable case.

Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.

In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."

In the 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.

According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. [...] I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers [...] with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006).

Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the U.S. military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.

Criminal charges

name	Usama Bin Laden
charge	* Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States Attack on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death
reward	$25 million
alias	* Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin the Prince the Emir Abu Abdallah Mujahid Shaykh Hajj the Director
birth date	1957
birth place	Saudi Arabia
death date	May 02, 2011
death place	Abbottabad, Pakistan
cause	Ballistic trauma
nationality	Saudi Arabian
gender	Male
height	6'4" to 6'6"
weight	Approximately 160 pounds
occupation	Unknown
added date	June 7, 1999
remove date	May 2, 2011
number	456
status	Killed/Captured }}

On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on June 8, 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the November 14, 1995, truck bombing of a U.S.-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of ''Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death'' for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States.

Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.

Years later, on October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.

Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. They did however offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."

On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama Bin Laden following his death in May.

Attempted capture by the United States

Clinton administration

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.

In 2000, prior to the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as "correctly focused on bin Laden", while Robert Oakley criticized their "obsession with Osama".

Bush administration

Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.

According to ''The Washington Post'', the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.

''The Washington Post'' also reported that the CIA unit composed of their special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. Bush had previously defended this scaling back of the effort several times, saying, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Obama administration

On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to "renew U.S. commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers" in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that "conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah," replacing it with "with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda will not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, is captured or killed. Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said bin Laden had become an "iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world", and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. "Killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large."

In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 1, 2011, the White House announced that U.S. Navy SEALs had carried it out, killing him in his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks

While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted dead or alive'. Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden’s continued whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:

In December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership [...] I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them..." Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post. Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally-verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival as recently as August 2007. In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts. . In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author, Rohan Gunaratna, stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral. In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan. On Dec. 9, 2009 BBC News reported that U.S. Army General Stanley A. McChrystal, who served as Commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009 until June 23, 2010 emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the U.S. high command believed that bin Laden was still alive On February 2, 2010, Afghan president, Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai’s plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden. On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Siyassa reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Savzevar, in north eastern Iran. The Australian News,online edition published the claim on June 9. On June 9, The Australian News, online edition repeated the claim. On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was "alive and well and living comfortably" in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States. On April 16, 2011, a leaked Al Jazeera report claimed that bin Laden had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Whereabouts just prior to his death

In July 2010, CIA operatives spotted Bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti driving through the streets of Peshawar, Pakistan. In August 2010, Al-Kuwaiti drives into a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. About 35 miles north of the capital, Islamabad, and just yards from a military academy. It was originally believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy, the country's "West Point". Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but was present on images taken in 2005.

Death

Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death.

Critics accused Pakistan's military and security establishment of protecting bin Laden. For example, Mosharraf Zaidi, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government "baseless speculation".

It was speculated that the issue might further strain U.S. ties with Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed in what some suggest was his residence for five years. It was an expensive compound located less than a mile from Pakistan's version of West Point, probably built for him and less than 100 kilometers' drive from the capital.

The Pakistani government's foreign office issued a statement that "categorically denies" any reports by the media that the country's leadership, "civil as well as military, had any prior knowledge of the U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden".

Pakistan's United States envoy, ambassador Husain Haqqani, promises a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound, just a few hours drive from Islamabad, and stated that "obviously bin Laden did have a support system; the issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan?"

See also

Afghan civil war

Childhood, education and personal life of Osama bin Laden

Fatawā of Osama bin Laden

Islamic fundamentalism

Islamic mujahid movement

Islamic terrorism

Osama bin Laden in popular culture

Pakistan and state terrorism

The Golden Chain

War against Islam

Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad

References

;Footnotes ;Additional notes # The date according to Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+05:00). ;Bibliography }} }} }}

Further reading

}} }} }}

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004

External links

Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at ''Dawn''

Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', ''The Observer'', November 24, 2002

Hunting Bin Laden, ''PBS Frontline'', (November 2002)

Young Osama, Steve Coll, ''The New Yorker'', December 12, 2005

How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by ''Life''

The Osama bin Laden File from The National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011

Category:1957 births Category:2011 deaths Category:20th-century criminals Category:21st-century criminals Category:Abdullah Yusuf Azzam Category:Afghan Civil War Category:Al-Qaeda founders Category:Al-Qaeda propagandists Category:Bin Laden family Category:Burials at sea Category:Civil engineers Category:Deaths by firearm in Pakistan Category:FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Category:FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives Category:Islamic terrorism Category:People from Abbottabad Category:People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan Category:People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) Category:Salafis Category:Saudi Arabia expatriates Category:Saudi Arabian expatriates in Pakistan Category:Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members Category:Saudi Arabian anti-communists Category:Saudi Arabian poets Category:September 11 attacks Category:Stateless persons Category:War on Terror Category:People designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee

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Conflict	2011 Libyan civil war
Partof	the Arab Spring
Date	15 February – 23 October 2011 (8 months, 8 days)
Place	Libya
Result	Overthrow of Gaddafi government Anti-Gaddafi forces take control of all Libyan cities. Muammar Gaddafi is killed. The National Transitional Council assumes interim control of Libya. 100 countries, UN, EU and AU diplomatically recognise the National Transitional Council as the sole governing authority for Libya.
Combatant1	National Transitional Council National Liberation Army * Free Libyan Air Force Anti-Gaddafi tribes ---- UN member states enforcing UNSC Resolution 1973: ---- (border clashes)
Combatant2	Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Libyan Armed Forces * Libyan Army * Libyan Air Force * Libyan Navy Paramilitary forces Pro-Gaddafi tribes Foreign mercenaries
Commander1	Mustafa Abdul Jalil(Chairman of the NTC) Abdul Hafiz Ghoga(Vice-Chairman of the NTC) Mahmoud Jibril(Interim Libyan Prime Minister) Jalal al-Digheily Omar El-Hariri Suleiman Mahmoud Abdul Fatah Younis''(assassinated 28 July in Benghazi)'' Khalifa Belqasim Haftar Mahdi al-Harati Abu Oweis Abdul Hassan Khalid Shahmah Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah ---- Anders Fogh Rasmussen(Secretary General) James G. Stavridis(SACEUR) Charles Bouchard(Operational Commander) Ralph Jodice(Air Commander) Rinaldo Veri(Maritime Commander) Carter Ham ---- Stephen Harper(Prime Minister of Canada) Marc Lessard Lars Løkke Rasmussen(Prime Minister of Denmark ''to 3 Oct'') Helle Thorning-Schmidt(Prime Minister of Denmark ''from 3 Oct'') Knud Bartels Nicolas Sarkozy(President of France) Édouard Guillaud Silvio Berlusconi (Prime Minister of Italy) Rinaldo Veri Jens Stoltenberg (Prime Minister of Norway) Harald Sunde David Cameron(Prime Minister of the UK) Sir Stuart Peach(Chief of Joint Operations) Barack Obama (President of the United States) Carter Ham Sam Locklear Abdullah II Sverker Göranson Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Commander2	Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Gaddafi's sons: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Khamis Gaddafi Mutassim Gaddafi Saif al-Arab Gaddafi Al-Saadi Gaddafi Military leaders: Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr(Minister of Defence) Abdullah Senussi(Head of Military Intelligence) Massoud Abdelhafid(Head of the secret police) Baghdadi Mahmudi(Libyan Prime Minister) Mahdi al-Arabi(Deputy chief of staff of the army and commander of special forces) Mohamed Abu Al-Quasim al-Zwai(Secretary-General of the General People's Congress) Abuzed Omar Dorda(Head of National Intelligence) Khouildi Hamidi(Deputy head of the secret police) Abdul Ati al-Obeidi(Foreign Minister) Ahmad Ramdan(Minister of Information) Salih Rajab al-Mismari(Minister of Public Security) Moussa Ibrahim(Gaddafi Spokesman) Hasan al-Kabir al-Gaddafi(Head of Revolutionary Guard Corps) Rafi al-Sharif(Head of the Navy) Ali Sharif al-Rifi(General and Head of the Air Force) Ali Kana(General and commander of southern forces) Awad Hamza(Infantry leader) Bashir Hawadi(General and field commander) Mustafa al-Kharoubi(General and military strategist) Nasr al-Mabrouk(General and primary police commander) Ahmed al-Gaddafi al-Qahsi(Army colonel and Gaddafi's cousin) Mansour Dhao(Head of Gaddafi's personal guards) Muftah Anaqrat(Brigadier General)
strength1	17,000 defecting soldiers and volunteers ---- International Forces: Numerous air and maritime forces (see here)
strength2	20,000–40,000 soldiers and militia
Casualties1	5,667–7,059 opposition fighters and supporters killed, 2,886–3,005 missing (see here) ---- 1 airman killed in traffic accident in Italy 3 Dutch Marines captured (later released) ---- 1 soldier killed
Casualties2	2,580–3,231 soldiers killed (see here),7,000 captured*
Casualties3	Estimated total casualties on both sides, including civilians:25,000–30,000 killed, 4,000 missing
Notes	*Large number of loyalist or immigrant civilians, not military personnel, among those captured by rebels, only an estimated minimum of 1,542+ confirmed as soldiers }}

The 2011 Libyan civil war (also referred to as the Libyan revolution) was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces that fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council. On 16 September 2011, the National Transitional Council was recognised by the United Nations as the legal representative of Libya, replacing the Gaddafi government.

The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and his inner circle and restricting their travel, and referred the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation. In early March, Gaddafi's forces rallied, pushed eastwards and re-took several coastal cities before attacking Benghazi. A further U.N. resolution authorised member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. The Gaddafi government then announced a ceasefire, but failed to uphold it.

In August, rebel forces engaged in a coastal offensive and took most of their lost territory, and captured the capital city of Tripoli, while Gaddafi evaded capture and loyalists engaged in a rearguard campaign. Muammar Gaddafi remained at large until 20 October 2011, when he was captured and killed attempting to escape from Sirte. The National Transitional Council declared the liberation of Libya and the official end of the war on 23 October 2011.

Background

Leadership

Muammar Gaddafi became the de-facto ruler of Libya after he led a military coup that overthrew King Idris I in 1969. He abolished the Libyan Constitution of 1951, and adopted laws based on his own ideology outlined in his manifesto ''The Green Book''. He officially stepped down from power in 1977, and subsequently claimed to be merely a "symbolic figurehead" until 2011, with the Libyan government up until then also denying that he held any power.

Under Gaddafi, Libya was theoretically a decentralized, direct democracy state run according to the philosophy of Gaddafi's ''The Green Book'', with Gaddafi retaining a ceremonial position. Libya was officially run by a system of people's committees which served as local governments for the country's subdivisions, an indirectly-elected General People's Congress as the legislature, and the General People's Committee, led by a Secretary-General, as the executive branch. According to Freedom House, however, these structures were often manipulated to ensure the dominance of Gaddafi, who reportedly continued to dominate all aspects of government.

WikiLeaks' disclosure of confidential US diplomatic cables revealed US diplomats there speaking of Gaddafi's "mastery of tactical manoeuvring". While placing relatives and loyal members of his tribe in central military and government positions, he skillfully marginalized supporters and rivals, thus maintaining a delicate balance of powers, stability and economic developments. This extended even to his own sons, as he repeatedly changed affections to avoid the rise of a clear successor and rival.

According to several Western media sources, Gaddafi feared a military coup against his government and deliberately kept Libya's military relatively weak. The Libyan Army consisted of about 50,000 personnel. Its most powerful units were four crack brigades of highly equipped and trained soldiers, composed of members of Gaddafi's tribe or members of other tribes loyal to him. One, the Khamis Brigade, was led by his son Khamis. Local militias and Revolutionary Committees across the country were also kept well-armed. By contrast, regular military units were poorly armed and trained, and were armed with largely outdated military equipment. According to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, however, the reason for the country's de-militarization was a reaction to the Iraq War, so that Libya wouldn't be accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and face the same fate. He also accused NATO of betraying their trust and taking advantage of this weakness to launch an air attack, recommending that other nations build up their military defences in order to avoid facing the same fate as Libya.

Development and corruption

Much of the state's income came from its oil production, which soared in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a large portion of it was spent on arms purchases, and on sponsoring militant groups and independence movements around the world.

Petroleum revenues contributed up to 58% of Libya's GDP. Governments with resource curse revenue have a lower need for taxes from other industries and consequently feel less pressure to develop their middle class. To calm opposition, they can use the income from natural resources to offer services to the population, or to specific government supporters. Libya's oil wealth being spread over a relatively small population gave it a higher GDP per capita than in neighbouring states. Libya's GDP per capita (PPP), human development index, and literacy rate were better than in Egypt and Tunisia, whose Arab Spring revolutions preceded the outbreak of protests in Libya. Libya's corruption perception index in 2010 was 2.2, ranking 146th out of 178 countries, worse than that of Egypt (ranked 98th) and Tunisia (ranked 59th). One paper speculated that such a situation created a broader contrast between good education, high demand for democracy, and the government's practices (perceived corruption, political system, supply of democracy). These migrant workers formed the bulk of the refugees leaving Libya after the beginning of hostilities. Despite this, Libya's Human Development Index in 2010 was the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia. Libya had welfare systems allowing access to free education, free healthcare, and financial assistance for housing, while the Great Manmade River was built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country.

Some of the worst economic conditions were in the eastern parts of the state, once a breadbasket of the ancient world, where Gaddafi extracted oil. Despite improvements in housing and the Great Manmade River allowing access to free fresh water, not much infrastructure beyond this was developed in the region for many years, with the only sewage facility in Benghazi being over 40 years old, and untreated sewage has resulted in environmental problems. Despite Gaddafi's government offering free healthcare to all citizens, the medical system was seen as poor and had become a symbol of the uneven distribution of resources in the country. The apparent lack of decent medical care often led Libyans to seek medical care in neighboring countries such as Tunisia and Egypt.

Several foreign governments and analysts have claimed that a large share of the business enterprise was controlled by Gaddafi, his family, and the government. A leaked US diplomatic cable claimed that the Libyan economy was "a kleptocracy in which the government – either the Gaddafi family itself or its close political allies – has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning". According to US officials, Gaddafi amassed a vast personal fortune during his 42-year leadership. ''The New York Times'' pointed to Gaddafi's relatives adopting lavish lifestyles, including luxurious homes, Hollywood film investments, and private parties with American pop stars.

Gaddafi claimed he was planning to combat corruption in the state by proposing reforms where oil profits are handed out directly to the country's five million people rather than to government bodies, stating that "as long as money is administered by a government body, there would be theft and corruption." Gaddafi urged a sweeping reform of the government bureaucracy, suggesting that most of the cabinet system should be dismantled to "free Libyans from red tape" and "protect the state's budget from corruption." According to Western diplomats, this move appeared to be aimed at putting pressure on the government to speed up reforms. In March 2008, Gaddafi proposed plans to dissolve the country's existing administrative structure and disburse oil revenue directly to the people. The plan included abolishing all ministries except those of defence, internal security, and foreign affairs, and departments implementing strategic projects. He claimed that the ministries were failing to manage the country’s oil revenues, and that his "dream during all these years was to give power and wealth directly to the people."

A national vote on Gaddafi's plan to disband the government and give oil money directly to the people was held in 2009, where Libya's people's congresses, collectively the country's highest authority, voted to delay implementation. The General People's Congress announced that, out of 468 Basic People's Congresses, 64 chose immediate implementation while 251 endorsed implementation "but asked for (it) to be delayed until appropriate measures were put in place." This plan led to dissent from top government officials, who claimed it would "wreak havoc" in the economy by "fanning inflation and spurring capital flight." Gaddafi acknowledged that the scheme, which promised up to 30,000 Libyan dinars ($23,000) annually to about a million of Libya's poorest, may "cause chaos before it brought about prosperity," but claimed "do not be afraid to experiment with a new form of government" and that "this plan is to offer a better future for Libya's children."

The civil war was viewed as part of the Arab Spring, which had already resulted in the ousting of long-term presidents of adjacent Tunisia and Egypt, with the initial protests all using similar slogans. Social media played an important role in organizing the opposition.

Human rights in Libya

In 2009 and 2011, the Freedom of the Press Index rated Libya the most-censored state in the Middle East and North Africa. In contrast, a January 2011 report of the United Nations Human Rights Council, on which the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya sat prior to the uprising, released a month before protests began, praised certain aspects of the country's human rights record, including its treatment of women and improvements in other areas.

Dissent was illegal under Law 75 of 1973, and in 1974, Gaddafi asserted that anyone guilty of founding a political party would be executed. With the establishment of the Jamahiriya ("state of the masses") system in 1977, he established the Revolutionary Committees as conduits for raising political consciousness, with the aim of direct political participation by all Libyans rather than a traditional party-based representative system. In 1979, some of the Revolutionary Committees had eventually evolved into self-appointed, sometimes zealous, enforcers of revolutionary orthodoxy. During the early 1980s, the Revolutionary Committees had considerable power and became a growing source of tension within the Jamihiriya, to the extent that Gaddafi sometimes criticized their effectiveness and excessive repression, until the power of the Revolutionary Committees were eventually restricted in the late 1980s.

The Revolutionary Committees occassionally kept tight control over internal dissent; reportedly, ten to twenty percent of Libyans worked as informants for these committees, with surveillance taking place in the government, in factories, and in the education sector. The government sometimes executed dissidents through public hangings and mutilations and re-broadcast them on public television channels. Up to the mid-1980s, Libya's intelligence service conducted assassinations of Libyan dissidents around the world.

Foreign languages such as English and French were banned from school syllabus and talking with foreigners about politics reportedly carried a three-year prison term. ''The Green Book'', which Gaddafi authored in the 1970s, was for years the principal text of political education. According to a Libyan lecturer, teachers who called it "rubbish" could face execution.

In 1988, Gaddafi criticized the "excesses" he blamed on the Revolutionary Councils, stating that "they deviated, harmed, tortured" and that "the true revolutionary does not practise repression." That same year, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya issued the ''Great Green Document on Human Rights'', in which Article 5 established laws that allowed greater freedom of expression. Article 8 of The Code on the Promotion of Freedom stated that "each citizen has the right to express his opinions and ideas openly in People’s Congresses and in all mass media." A number of restrictions were also allegedly placed on the power of the Revolutionary Committees, leading to a resurgence in the Libyan state's popularity by the early 1990s. In 2004, however, Libya posted a $1 million bounty for journalist and governmental critic Ashur Shamis, under the allegation that he was linked to Al-Qaeda and terror suspect Abu Qatada.

In December 2009, Gaddafi reportedly told government officials that Libya would soon experience a "new political period" and would have elections for important positions such as minister-level roles and the National Security Advisor position (a Prime Minister equivalent). He also promised that international monitors would be included to ensure fair elections. His speech was said to have caused quite a stir. These elections were planned to coincide with the Jamahiriya's usual periodic elections for the Popular Committees, Basic People's Committees, Basic People's Congresses, and General People's Congresses, in 2010.

Anti-Gaddafi movement, beginnings of the National Transitional Council

Beginnings of protests

Between 13 and 16 January, upset at delays in the building of housing units and over political corruption, protesters in Bayda, Derna, Benghazi, Bani Walid and other cities broke into, and occupied, housing that the government had been building. Protesters also clashed with police in Bayda and attacked government offices. By 27 January, the government had responded to the housing unrest with a €20 billion investment fund to provide housing and development.

In late January, Jamal al-Hajji, a writer, political commentator and accountant, "call[ed] on the Internet for demonstrations to be held in support of greater freedoms in Libya" inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. He was arrested on 1 February by plain-clothes police officers, and charged on 3 February with injuring someone with his car. Amnesty International claimed that because al-Hajji had previously been imprisoned for his non-violent political opinions, the real reason for the present arrest appeared to be his call for demonstrations. In early February, Gaddafi, on behalf of the Jamahiriya, met with political activists, journalists and media figures and warned them that they would be held responsible if they disturbed the peace or created chaos in Libya.

Uprising and civil war

The protests, unrest and confrontations began in earnest on 15 February 2011. On the evening of 15 February, between 500 and 600 demonstrators protested in front of Benghazi's police headquarters after the arrest of human rights lawyer Fathi Terbil. The protest was broken up violently by police, resulting in clashes in which 38 people were injured, among them ten security personnel. The novelist Idris Al-Mesmari was arrested hours after giving an interview with ''Al Jazeera'' about the police reaction to protests.

In Bayda and Zintan, hundreds of protesters in each town called for an end to the Gaddafi government and set fire to police and security buildings. In Zintan, the protesters set up tents in the town centre. The armed protests continued the following day in Benghazi, Derna and Bayda. Libyan security forces allegedly responded with lethal force. Hundreds gathered at Maydan al-Shajara in Benghazi, and authorities tried to disperse protesters with water cannons. A "Day of Rage" in Libya and by Libyans in exile was planned for 17 February. The National Conference for the Libyan Opposition asked that all groups opposed to the Gaddafi government protest on 17 February in memory of demonstrations in Benghazi five years earlier. The plans to protest were inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution. Protests took place in Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Derna, Zintan, and Bayda. Libyan security forces fired live ammunition into the armed protests. Protesters torched a number of government buildings, including a police station. In Tripoli, television and public radio stations had been sacked, and protesters set fire to security buildings, Revolutionary Committee offices, the interior ministry building, and the People's Hall. According to a report from the International Crisis Group, "much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the government's security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge".

On 18 February, police and army personnel later withdrew from Benghazi after being overwhelmed by protesters. Some army personnel also joined the protesters; they then seized the local radio station. In Bayda, unconfirmed reports indicated that the local police force and riot-control units had joined the protesters. On 19 February, witnesses in Libya reported helicopters firing into crowds of anti-government protesters. The army withdrew from the city of Bayda.

Cultural revolt

Rap, hip hop and traditional music, alongside other genres, have played a role in encouraging the dissidents to Gaddafi's government. Music has been controlled and dissenting cultural figures have been arrested or tortured in Arab Spring countries, including Libya. The music has provided an important platform by means of communication among the demonstrators. The music has helped create moral support and encouraged a spirit of resistance and revolt against the governments.

An anonymous hip hop artist called Ibn Thabit has given a voice to "disenfranchised Libyans looking for a non-violent way to express their political will". On his website, Ibn Thabit claims that "has been attacking Gaddafi with his music since 2008" when he posted his first song on the internet, titled "Moammar – the coward". Lyrics of a song 'Al-Soo'al' released by Ibn Thabit on YouTube on 27 January 2011, weeks before the riots began in Libya are indicative of the rebel sentiment.

Some groups, such as a rock band from Benghazi called the "Guys Underground", used metaphors to cloak the censure of the authorities. The group released a song just before the uprising entitled "Like My Father Always Says" to ridicule an autocratic fictional male head of a family which was a veiled reference to Colonel Gaddafi.

Organisation

Many opposition participants have called for a return to the 1952 constitution and a transition to multi-party democracy. Military units who have joined the rebellion and many volunteers have formed an army to defend against Jamahiriya attacks and to work to bring Tripoli under the influence of Jalil. In Tobruk, volunteers turned a former headquarters of the government into a centre for helping protesters. Volunteers reportedly guarded the port, local banks and oil terminals to keep the oil flowing. Teachers and engineers set up a committee to collect weapons. Likewise supply lines were run by volunteers. For example, in Misrata people organised a pizza service which delivered up to 8,000 pizzas a day to fighters.

The National Transitional Council () was established on 27 February in an effort to consolidate efforts for change in the rule of Libya. The main objectives of the group did not include forming an interim government, but instead to co-ordinate resistance efforts between the different towns held in rebel control, and to give a political "face" to the opposition to present to the world. The Benghazi-based opposition government had called for a no-fly zone and airstrikes against the Jamahiriya. The council refers to the Libyan state as the ''Libyan Republic'' and it now has a website. Former Jamahiriya Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil said in February that the new government would prepare for elections and they could be held in three months. On 29 March, the political and international affairs committee of the Council presented its eight-point plan for Libya in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, stating they would hold free and fair elections and draft a national constitution.

An independent newspaper called ''Libya'' appeared in Benghazi, as well as rebel-controlled radio stations. Some of the rebels oppose tribalism and wear vests bearing slogans such as "No to tribalism, no to factionalism". Libyans have said that they have found abandoned torture chambers and devices that have been used in the past.

Composition of rebel forces

The rebels are composed primarily of civilians, such as teachers, students, lawyers, and oil workers, and a contingent of professional soldiers that defected from the Libyan Army and joined the rebels. The Islamist group Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is considered part of the rebel movement, as is the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade which has been held responsible for the assassination of top rebel commander Gen Abdel Fattah Younes.

Gaddafi's administration had repeatedly asserted that the rebels included al-Qaeda fighters. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander James G. Stavridis stated that intelligence reports suggested "flickers" of al-Qaeda activity were present among the rebels, but also added that there is not sufficient information to confirm there is any significant al-Qaeda or terrorist presence. Denials of al-Qaeda membership were issued by the rebels. But two documents support Gaddafi's claims on this issue. One being a secret cable to the State Department from the US embassy in Tripoli in 2008, part of the WikiLeaks trove, entitled "Extremism in Eastern Libya". The other being an analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point of a set of documents called the Sinjar Records, purporting to show a statistical study of the al-Qaeda personnel records. The West Point analyisis of these documents concluded that Libya provided "far more" foreign fighters in per capita terms than any other country. A disclosed file from 2005 on WikiLeaks found that rebel leader Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda Bin Qumu was a former Guantanamo Bay detainee alleged to be a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, to have joined the Taliban in 1998, and that he was a “probable member of Al Qaida and a member of the African Extremist Network.”

The composition of rebel forces also drew former exiles or their children, with Western news outlets frequently recounting the return of exiles from abroad to help, and often die, in the rebels' fight against the Gaddafi government.

State response

In the days leading up to the conflict, Gaddafi called for a rally against the government that was to be held on 17 February. The International Crisis Group believes this to have been a political manoeuvre to divert attention away from himself and the Jamahiriya political system towards government officials currently in power.

Later in February, Gaddafi claimed that the rebels were influenced by Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and hallucinogenic drugs put in drinks and pills. He specifically referred to substances in milk, coffee, and Nescafé, and claimed that Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were distributing these hallucinogenic drugs. He also blamed alcohol. Gaddafi later also claimed that the revolt against his rule was the result of a colonialist plot by foreign states, particularly blaming France, the US and the UK, to control oil and enslave the Libyan people. He referred to the rebels as "cockroaches" and "rats", and vowed not to step down and to cleanse Libya house by house until the insurrection was crushed.

Gaddafi declared that people who don't "love" him "do not deserve to live". He called himself a "warrior", and vowed to fight on and die a "martyr", and urged his supporters to leave their homes and attack rebels "in their lairs". Gaddafi claimed that he had not yet ordered the use of force, and threatened that "everything will burn" when he did. Responding to demands that he step down, he claimed that he could not step down, as he held a purely symbolic position like Queen Elizabeth, and that the people were in power.

The Swedish peace research institute SIPRI reported flights between Tripoli and a dedicated military base in Belarus which only handles stockpiled weaponry and military equipment.

Violence

The Libyan government were reported to have employed snipers, artillery, helicopter gunships, warplanes, anti-aircraft weaponry, and warships against demonstrations and funeral processions. It was also reported that security forces and foreign mercenaries repeatedly used firearms, including assault rifles and machine guns, as well as knives against protesters. Amnesty International initially reported that writers, intellectuals and other prominent opposition sympathizers disappeared during the early days of the conflict in Gaddafi-controlled cities, and that they may have been subjected to torture or execution.

Amnesty International also reported that security forces targeted paramedics helping injured protesters. In multiple incidents, Gaddafi's forces were documented using ambulances in their attacks. Injured demonstrators were sometimes denied access to hospitals and ambulance transport. The government also banned giving blood transfusions to people who had taken part in the demonstrations. Security forces, including members of Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees, stormed hospitals and removed the dead. Injured protesters were either summarily executed or had their oxygen masks, IV drips, and wires connected to the monitors removed. The dead and injured were piled into vehicles and taken away, possibly for cremation. Doctors were prevented from documenting the numbers of dead and wounded, but an orderly in a Tripoli hospital morgue estimated to the BBC that 600–700 protesters were killed in Green Square in Tripoli on 20 February. The orderly claimed that ambulances brought in three or four corpses at a time, and that after the ice lockers were filled to capacity, bodies were placed on stretchers or the floor, and that "it was in the same at the other hospitals".

On 19 February, several days after the conflict began, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi announced the creation of a commission of inquiry into the violence, chaired by a Libyan judge, as reported on state television. He stated that the commission was intended to be "for members of Libyan and foreign organizations of human rights" and that it will "investigate the circumstances and events that have caused many victims." Later in the month, he went on state television to deny allegations that the government had launched airstrikes against Libyan cities and stated that the number of protesters killed had been exaggerated.

Later in February, it was reported that the Gaddafi government had suppressed protests in Tripoli by distributing automobiles, money and weapons for hired followers to drive around Tripoli and attack people showing signs of dissent. In Tripoli, "death squads" of mercenaries and Revolutionary Committees members reportedly patrolled the streets and shot people who tried to take the dead off the streets or gather in groups.

In March 2011, the International Federation for Human Rights concluded that Gaddafi was implementing a scorched earth strategy. The organization stated that "It is reasonable to fear that he has, in fact, decided to largely eliminate, wherever he still can, Libyan citizens who stood up against his regime and furthermore, to systematically and indiscriminately repress civilians. These acts can be characterized as crimes against humanity, as defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."

In May 2011, International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo estimated that 500–700 people were killed by security forces in February 2011, before the rebels took up arms. According to Moreno-Ocampo, "shooting at protesters was systematic".

During the siege of Misrata in May 2011, Amnesty International reported "horrifying" tactics such as "indiscriminate attacks that have led to massive civilian casualties, including use of heavy artillery, rockets and cluster bombs in civilian areas and sniper fire against residents." Gaddafi's military commanders also reportedly executed soldiers who refused to fire on protesters. The International Federation for Human Rights reported a case where 130 soldiers were executed. Some of the soldiers executed by their commanders were reportedly burned alive.

In June 2011, a more detailed investigation carried out by Amnesty International found that many of the allegations against Gaddafi and the Libyan state turned out to either be false or lack any credible evidence, noting that rebels at times appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence. According to the Amnesty investigation, the number of casualties was heavily exaggerated, some of the protesters may have been armed, "there is no proof of mass killing of civilians on the scale of Syria or Yemen," and there is no evidence that aircraft or heavy anti-aircraft machine guns were used against crowds. It also doubted claims that the protest movement was "entirely peaceful" and "presented no security challenge."

In July 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had an interview with ''Russia Today'' in which he denied the ICC's allegations that he or his father Muammar Gaddafi ordered the killing of civilian protesters. He claimed that he was not a member of the government or the military and therefore had no authority to give such orders. He also claimed his father made recorded calls to General Abdul Fatah Younis, who later defected to the rebel forces, in order to request not to use force against protesters, to which he said Fatah Younis responded that protesters were attacking a military site and soldiers were acting in self-defense.

Prison sites and torture

Gaddafi reportedly imprisoned thousands or tens of thousands residents in Tripoli, with Red Cross denied access to these hidden prisons. One of the most notorious is a prison which was setup in a tobacco factory in Tripoli where inmates are reported to have been fed just half a loaf of bread and a bottle of water a day.

In late April, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice alleged that soldiers loyal to Gaddafi were given Viagra and encouraged to commit rapes in rebel-held or disputed areas. The allegations surfaced in an ''Al Jazeera'' report the previous month from Libya-based doctors, who claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of government soldiers. Human rights groups and aid workers had previously documented rapes by loyalist fighters during the war. The British aid agency "Save the children" said it got reports that children were raped by unknown perpetrators, although the charity warns that these reports could not be confirmed.

In Misrata, a rebel spokesman claimed that government soldiers had committed a string of sexual assaults in Benghazi Street before being pushed out by rebels. A doctor claimed that two young sisters were raped by five Black African mercenaries after their brothers joined the rebels. According to aid workers, four young girls were abducted and held for four days, and were possibly sexually assaulted. In a questionnaire 259 refugee women reported that they had been raped by Gaddafi's soldiers, however the accounts of these women could not be independently verified as the psychologist who conducted the questionnaire claimed that "she had lost contact with them". The validity of the rape allegations is questioned by Amnesty International, which has not found evidence to back up the claims and notes that there are indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.

Mercenaries

Soon after Gaddafi's government started to use force against demonstrators, it became apparent that some Libyan military units refused to shoot protesters, and Gaddafi had hired foreign mercenaries to do the job. Gaddafi's ambassador to India Ali al-Essawi confirmed that the defections of military units had indeed led to such a decision. Video footage of this started to leak out of the country. Gaddafi's former Chief of Protocol Nouri Al Misrahi stated in an interview with the ''Al Jazeera'' that Nigerien, Malian, Chadian and Kenyan mercenaries are among foreign soldiers helping fight the uprising on behalf of Gaddafi. Defecting Libyan Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi called on African nations to stop sending mercenaries to defend the Gaddafi government.

In Mali, members of the Tuareg tribe confirmed that a large number of men, about 5,000, from the tribe went to Libya in late February. Locals in Mali said they were promised €7,500 ($10,000) upfront payment and compensation up to €750 ($1,000) per day. Gaddafi has used Malian Tuaregs in his political projects before, sending them to fight in places like Chad, Sudan and Lebanon and recently they have fought against Niger government, a war which Gaddafi has reportedly sponsored. Malian government officials told BBC that it's hard to stop the flow of fighters from Mali to Libya. A recruitment center for Malian soldiers leaving to Libya was found in a Bamako hotel.

Reports from Ghana state that the men who went to Libya were offered as much as €1950 ($2,500) per day. Advertisements seeking mercenaries were seen in Nigeria with at least one female Nigerian pro-Gaddafi sniper being caught in late August outside of Tripoli. One group of mercenaries from Niger, who had been allegedly recruited from the streets with promises of money, included a soldier of just 13 years of age. ''The Daily Telegraph'' studied the case of a sixteen-year-old captured Chadian child soldier in Bayda. The boy, who had previously been a shepherd in Chad, told that a Libyan man had offered him a job and a free flight to Tripoli, but in the end he had been airlifted to shoot opposition members in Eastern Libya.

Reports by EU experts stated that Gaddafi's government hired between 300 and 500 European soldiers, including some from EU countries, at high wages. According to Michel Koutouzis, who does research on security issues for the EU institutions, the UN and the French government, "In Libyan society, there is a taboo against killing people from your own tribal group. This is one reason why Gaddafi needs foreign fighters," The Serbian newspaper ''Alo!'' stated that Serbs were hired to help Gaddafi in the early days of the conflict. Rumors of Serbian pilots participating on the side of Gaddafi appeared early in the conflict. Time magazine interviewed mercenaries from ex-Yugoslavia who fled Gaddafi's forces in August.

A witness claimed that mercenaries were more willing to kill demonstrators than Libyan forces were, and earned a reputation as among the most brutal forces employed by the government. A doctor in Benghazi said of the mercenaries that "they know one thing: to kill whose in front of them. Nothing else. They're killing people in cold blood".

On 7 April, Reuters reported that soldiers loyal to Gaddafi were sent into refugee camps to intimidate and bribe black African migrant workers into fighting for the Libyan state during the war. Some of these "mercenaries" were compelled to fight against their wishes, according to a source inside one of the refugee camps.

In June 2011, Amnesty International said it found no evidence of foreign mercenaries being used, saying the black Africans claimed to be "mercenaries" were in fact "sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya," and described the use of mercenaries as a "myth" that "inflamed public opinion" and led to lynchings and executions of black Africans by rebel forces.

In October 2011 it was reported that the South African government was investigating the possibility that South African mercenaries were hired by Gaddafi to help him in his failed attempt to escape the besieged city of Sirte. It is thought that two South African mercenaries died in that operation from a NATO air strike on Gaddafi's convoy. One of the alleged mercenaries speaking from a hospital in North Africa stated that that around 19 South Africans had been contracted by different companies for the operation.

Censorship of events

A subsidiary of Bull, developed a software called Eagle that enabled to monitor internet traffic and which was implemented in Libya in 2008 and with better performance in 2010. Gaddafi shut down all Internet communications in Libya, and arrested Libyans who had given phone interviews to the media. International journalists were banned by the Libyan authorities from reporting from Libya except by invitation of the Gaddafi government. On 21 February, ''The New York Times'' reported that Gaddafi had tried to impose a blackout on information from Libya. Several residents reported that cellphone service was down, and even landline phone service was sporadic. However, every day new footage made with cell phone cameras finds its way to YouTube and the international media. Journalists and human rights researchers make daily phone calls to hundreds of civilians in government held territory.

International journalists who have attempted to cover the events have been attacked by Gaddafi's forces. A ''BBC News'' crew was beaten and then lined up against a wall by Gaddafi's soldiers, who then shot next to a journalist's ear and laughed at them. A journalist working for ''The Guardian'' and another Brazilian journalist have been detained. An ''Al-Jazeera'' journalist Ali Hassan al-Jaber was murdered, and was apparently deliberately targeted. Gaddafi's soldiers held four ''New York Times'' journalists – Lynsey Addario, Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks – in captivity for a week. Libyan citizen journalist Mohammed Nabbous was shot in the head by Gaddafi's soldiers soon after exposing the Gaddafi government's false reports related to the cease-fire declaration.

Colors of the revolution were banned. Some Tripoli residents painted their cats with the colors of the revolution, but Gaddafi's men shot them.

International propaganda

After the uprising began, Libyan students studying in the United States received phone calls from the Libyan embassy, instructing them to participate in pro-Gaddafi rallies. They were threatened with losing their government-funded scholarships if they refused. Gaddafi's ambassador denied the reports. A campaign in Serbia has organized people to spread pro-Gaddafi messages on the Internet.

Gaddafi's men organized tours for foreign journalists in Tripoli. ''The Economist'' correspondent in Tripoli noted "The picture presented by the regime often falls apart, fast. Coffins at funerals have sometimes turned out to be empty. Bombing sites are recycled. An injured seven-year-old in a hospital was the victim of a car crash, according to a note passed on surreptitiously by a nurse. Journalists who point out such blatant massaging of facts are harangued in the hotel corridors." [[File:Libyan war final.svg|thumb|250px|The course of the war. 30px Major campaigns. ''The Guardian'' described journalism in Gaddafi's Libya as "North Korea with palm trees". Journalist were not allowed to go anywhere, or talk to anyone, without authorization from Gaddafi's officials who always followed them. Journalists who didn't report events the way Gaddafi's officials instructed faced problems and sudden deportations.

In June 2011, Amnesty International criticized "Western media coverage" which "has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime's security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge."

Human shields

Gaddafi forces reportedly surrounded themselves with civilians to protect themselves and key military sites like the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli from air strikes. Amnesty International has reported that Gaddafi places his tanks next to civilian facilities to use them as shields, which is a war crime under international law.

Course of the war

First weeks

By 23 February, Gaddafi was suffering from the resignations and defections of close allies, from the loss of Benghazi, the fall of Tobruk, Misrata, Bayda, Zawiya, Zuwara, Sabratha, Sorman, and mounting international isolation and pressure. By the end of February, Gaddafi's government had lost control of a significant part of Libya, including the major cities of Misrata and Benghazi, and the important harbors at Ra's Lanuf and Brega. But in March, Gaddafi's forces pushed the rebels back and eventually reached Benghazi and Misrata.

Foreign military intervention

The Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS ''Charlottetown'' was on 2 March 2011 deployed to the Mediterranean, off the coast of Libya, but did not take immediate action once arrived. Seventeen days later, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to events during the 2011 Libyan civil war. That same day, military operations began, with US and British forces firing cruise missiles, the French Air Force and British Royal Air Force undertaking sorties across Libya and a naval blockade by the Royal Navy.

Since the beginning of the intervention, the initial coalition of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, UK and US has expanded to seventeen states, with newer states mostly enforcing the no-fly zone and naval blockade or providing military logistical assistance. The effort was initially largely led by France and the United Kingdom, with command shared with the United States. NATO took control of the arms embargo on 23 March, named Operation Unified Protector. An attempt to unify the military command of the air campaign (whilst keeping political and strategic control with a small group), first failed over objections by the French, German, and Turkish governments. On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone, while command of targeting ground units remains with coalition forces. The handover occurred on 31 March 2011 at 0600 GMT.

In June 2011, Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi announced that they were willing to hold elections and that Gaddafi would step aside if he lost. Saif al-Islam stated that the elections could be held within three months and transparency would be guaranteed through international observers. NATO and the rebels rejected the offer, and NATO soon resumed their bombardment of Tripoli.

In July 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi condemned NATO for bombing Libyan civilians, including his family members and their children, under the false pretence that their homes were military bases. He also stated that NATO offered to drop the ICC charges against him and his father if they accept a secret deal, an offer they rejected. He thus criticized the ICC as "a fake court" that is controlled by the NATO nations.

20 August 2011 rebel offensive

colspan="20" style="text-align:center; font-size:8pt;"	Funds spent by Foreign Powers on War in Libya.
Country
	$664 million USD	May 2011
align=center>Canada	$26 million USD
align=center	United Kingdom	$400 million USD
align=center	France	$228.9 million USD
align=center	Turkey	$300 million USD
align=center	United States	$896 million USD
align=center	France	$450 million USD
align=center	United Kingdom	$1500 million USD
align=center	United States	$1100 million USD
align=center	Spain	$50 million USD
align=center	Sweden	$50 million USD

Heads of the rebellion reported on 21 August 2011 that Gaddafi's son Saif was under arrest and that they had encircled the leader's compound, suggesting that the war had reached its endgame with an imminent rebel victory. By 22 August, rebel fighters had gained entrance into Tripoli and occupied Green Square, which was promptly renamed Martyrs' Square in memory of those who had died fighting in the civil war. Early on 23 August, Gaddafi's son Saif appeared at the Gaddafi-controlled Rixos Hotel in central Tripoli and boasted his father was still in control. Later the same day, rebels blasted open the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli through its north gates and stormed inside. Despite previous reports suggesting that Muammar Gaddafi may be inside, no members of Gaddafi's family or army forces were found.

Early the following day, 24 August, Gaddafi broadcast an address from a Tripoli local radio station in which he said the withdrawal from Bab al-Azizia had been a "tactical" move. ''The New York Times'' reported rebel leaders as saying they believed the only areas still under Gaddafi's control, other than the immediate neighborhood of Bab al-Azizia, were al-Hadhba and Abu Salim, the latter including the Rixos Hotel where a group of foreign journalists had been trapped for days. However, the report noted the rebels lacked a unified command and that Gaddafi loyalists and snipers remained at large in many areas of Tripoli. Local hospitals and clinics, even in areas considered under rebel control, were reporting hundreds of cases of gunshot wounds and the death toll was impossible to estimate. By late afternoon the journalists trapped at the Rixos Hotel had been released while heavy fighting continued in the Abu Salim region close to Bab al-Azizia and elsewhere. The rebels were reported as estimating 400 people had been killed and a further 2,000 injured in the battle thus far.

After Tripoli and NTC victory

Efforts to mop up pro-Gaddafi forces in northwestern Libya and toward Sirte began even before the rebels fully consolidated control of Tripoli. Rebels took the city of Ghadames near the borders of Tunisia and Algeria on 29 August. Members of the Gaddafi family have taken flight to Algeria. In September, the Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid was besieged by rebels, who reported that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was hiding in the city. On 22 September, the NTC captured the southern city of Sabha, and claimed to have found a large cache of chemical weapons. Concerns were raised over the danger of Gaddafi mounting an insurgency against the new authorities.

By mid-October 2011, much of the city of Sirte had been taken by NTC forces, although fierce fighting continued around the city center, where many pro-Gaddafi fighters were encamped. The NTC captured the whole of Sirte on 20 October 2011, and reported that Gaddafi himself had been killed in the city. Some civilian Gaddafi supporters remaining in the city reported that women and children had been killed in crossfire or fired upon by rebel forces. There were also reports of harassment and theft by rebels, however the rebel army indicated it would leave unarmed civilians "to their own devices", and had allowed families in the city access to supplies and medical assistance.

Humanitarian situation

By the end of February 2011, supplies of medicine, fuel and food were dangerously low in Libya's urban centres. On 25 February, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal for to meet the emergency needs of people affected by the violent unrest in Libya. In early March, the fighting across Libya meant that more than a million people fleeing or inside the country needed humanitarian aid. The Islamic Relief and the WFP also coordinated a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Misrata. In March, the Swedish government donated medical supplies and other humanitarian aid and the UN World Food Programme provided food. Turkey sent a hospital ship to Misrata and a Turkish cargo ship brought 141 tons of humanitarian aid.

Another humanitarian issue was refugees fleeing the crisis. A humanitarian ship docked in harbour of Misrata in April to begin the evacuation of stranded migrants. By 10 July, over 150,000 migrants were evacutated. Migrants were also stranded elsewhere in Libya, such as in the southern towns of Sebha and Gatroum. Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya–Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those escaping the violence were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks.

Potential military–humanitarian coordination

While the UN sanctioned military intervention has been implemented on humanitarian grounds, UN agencies seeking to ease the humanitarian crisis repeatedly rejected offers of support from the military to carry out the agencies' humanitarian operations. The conditions under which such support may be accepted are outlined in the Guidelines on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets to Support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies (MCDA), whereby military support can be used but only temporarily and as a last resort. Yet, there remains the concern that aid agencies' neutrality will be brought into question by accepting military support, putting aid staff at risk of being attacked and causing some parties to prevent the agencies accessing all the areas they need to. Furthermore, the military may not always have the technical skills required to assess the need for aid and to ensure its effective distribution. Despite this, offers continue for the creation of an aid corridor and aid agencies have accepted military logistical support in the past, for instance in the 2010 Pakistan floods response.

Targeting of black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans

In August 2011, the UNHCR issued a strong call for the rights and lives of sub-Saharan Africans living in Libya to be protected due to reports that black Africans were being targeted by the rebel forces as cities fell. Other news sources including ''The Independent'' and CNN have reported on the targeting of black people in rebel held areas.

An Amnesty International statement, released on 30 August 2011, stated that on visits to detention centres in Zawiya and Tripoli, Amnesty International was informed that between one third and half of those detained were from Sub-Saharan Africa. A New York Times online article also comments that "it seems that plenty of the black Africans captured as mercenaries were never actually involved in the fight". "Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans worked in Gaddafi's Libya, doing everything from managing hotels to sweeping floors. But some also fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries, and many migrant workers [-] fled ahead of the rebels, fearing they would be mistaken for mercenaries."

The ''Miami Herald'' reported that some African women have claimed rebels are raping them in refugee camps, with additional reports of forced labour. Foreign aid workers are also claiming to be prohibited from officially talking about the allegations.

The town of Taworgha, which supported Gaddafi prior to its capture by anti-Gaddafi fighters in August, has been emptied of its mostly black inhabitants in what appeared to be a "major reprisal against supporters of the Gaddafi regime", according to an 11 September report from ''The Sunday Telegraph'', and commanders of the Misrata Brigade are refusing to allow the displaced townspeople to return. One commander was quoted as saying, "Taworgha no longer exists."

Libyan refugees

Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya–Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those, escaping the violence, were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks. In February, Italian Foreign Minister Frattini expressed his concerns that the amount of Libyan refugees trying to reach Italy might reach between 200,000 and 300,000 people. By 1 March, officials from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had confirmed allegations of discrimination against sub-Saharan Africans who were held in dangerous conditions in the no-man's-land between Tunisia and Libya. By 3 March, an estimated 200,000 refugees had fled Libya to either Tunisia or Egypt. A provisional refugee camp set up at Ras Ejder with a capacity for 10,000 was overflowing with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 refugees. Many tens of thousands were still trapped on the Libyan side of the frontier. By 3 March, the situation was described as a logistical nightmare, with the World Health Organization warning of the risk of epidemics.

To continue responding to the needs of people staying at the Ras Ejder crossing point in Tunisia, the WFP and Secours Islamique-France were upgrading a kitchen that would provide breakfast for families. Separately, the ICRC advised it was handing over its operations at the Choucha Camp to the Tunisian Red Crescent. Since 24 March, the WFP supplied over 42,500 cooked meals for TCNs at the Saloum border. A total of 1,650 cartons of fortified date bars (equivalent of 13.2 metric tons) had also been provided to supplement these meals.

''The Sunday Telegraph'' reported on 11 September that almost the entire population of Taworgha, a town of about 10,000 people, had been forced to flee their homes by anti-Gaddafi fighters after their takeover of the settlement. The report suggested that Taworgha, which was dominated by black Libyans, may have been the subject of ethnic cleansing provoked by a combination of racism and bitterness on the part of Misratan fighters over the town's support for Gaddafi during the siege of Misrata.

Casualties

Independent numbers of dead and injured in the conflict have still not been made available. Estimates have been widely varied.

On 24 February 2011, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported that the International Criminal Court estimated 10,000 had been killed. The numbers of injured were estimated to be around 4,000 by 22 February.

On 2 March, the World Health Organization estimated approximately 2,000 killed. At the same time, the opposition claimed that 6,500 people had died. Later, rebel spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga reported that the death toll reached 8,000.

In June 2011, Amnesty International stated that earlier estimates of the initial clashes in February were exaggerated. It estimated that during the first few days of the conflict, 100 to 110 people were killed in Benghazi and 59 to 64 were killed in Baida.

On 8 September, Naji Barakat, the Health Minister of the National Transitional Council, stated that about half of an estimated 30,000 dead were believed to have been pro-Gaddafi fighters. War wounded were estimated as at least 50,000, of which about 20,000 were serious injuries, but this estimate was expected to rise. However, there was no independent verification of the Health Minister's claim and, one month later, the NTC reduced the estimated number of killed to 25,000.

Domestic responses

Resignation of government officials

In response to the use of force against protesters, a number of senior Libyan public officials either renounced the Gaddafi government or resigned from their positions. Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil and Interior Minister Major General Abdul Fatah Younis both defected to the opposition. Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa fled Libya, with the latter defecting to the UK. Libyan Prosecutor General Abdul-Rahman al-Abbar resigned his position and joined the opposition.

The staff of a number of diplomatic missions of Libya have either resigned or condemned the actions of the Gaddafi government. The ambassadors to the Arab League, European Union and United Nations have either resigned or stated that they no longer support the government. The ambassadors to Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Portugal, Sweden, and the US also renounced the Gaddafi government or formally resigned.

Military defections

A number of senior military officials defected to the opposition, including General Abdul Fatah Younis, General al-Barani Ashkal, Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, Brigadier General Musa'ed Ghaidan Al Mansouri, Brigadier General Hassan Ibrahim Al Qarawi and Brigadier General Dawood Issa Al Qafsi. Two Libyan Air Force colonels each flew their Mirage F1 fighter jets to Malta and requested asylum, after being ordered to carry out airstrikes against civilian protesters in Benghazi. Colonel Nuretin Hurala, the commander of the Benghazi Naval Base also defected along with senior naval officials.

Economic, religious and tribal

The Libyan economy is mainly based on its oil production. The Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the second-largest state-owned oil company in Libya, announced plans to use oil funds to support anti-Gaddafi forces. Islamic leaders and clerics in Libya, notably the Network of Free Ulema – Libya urged all Muslims to rebel against Gaddafi. The Warfalla, Tuareg and Magarha tribes announced their support of the protesters. The Zuwayya tribe, based in eastern Libya, threatened to cut off oil exports from fields in its part of Libya if Libyan security forces continued attacking demonstrators.

Libyan royal family

Muhammad as-Senussi, son of the former Crown Prince and grand-nephew of the late King Idris, sent his condolences "for the heroes who have laid down their lives, killed by the brutal forces of Gaddafi" and called on the international community "to halt all support for the dictator with immediate effect." as-Senussi said that the protesters would be "victorious in the end" and calls for international support to end the violence. On 24 February, as-Senussi gave an interview to Al Jazeera where he called upon the international community to help remove Gaddafi from power and stop the ongoing "massacre". He dismissed talk of a civil war saying "The Libyan people and the tribes have proven they are united". He later stated that international community needs "less talk and more action" to stop the violence. He asked for a no-fly zone over Libya but does not support foreign ground troops. On 20 April, Mohammed spoke in front of the European Parliament calling for more support for Libya. He also stated that he will support any form of government that Libya will choose after Gaddafi including a constitutional monarchy.

A rival claimant to the throne, Idris bin Abdullah al-Senussi, announced in an interview with ''Adnkronos'' that he was ready to return to Libya and "assume leadership" once change had been initiated. On 21 February, he made an appearance on ''Piers Morgan Tonight'' to discuss the uprising. In March, it was reported Idris bin Abdullah had held meetings at the State Department and Congress in Washington with US government officials. It was also reported attempts at contact had been initiated by French and Saudi officials. On 3 March, it was reported that another member of the family, Prince Zouber al-Senussi, had fled Libya with his family and was seeking asylum in Totebo, Sweden.

International reactions

Many states and supranational bodies condemned Gaddafi's government over its attacks on civilian targets within the country. Virtually all Western countries cut off diplomatic relations with Gaddafi's government over an aerial bombing campaign in February and March, and a number of other countries led by Peru and Botswana did likewise. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 was adopted on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and ten members of his inner circle and restricting their travel. The resolution also referred the actions of the government to the International Criminal Court for investigation, and an arrest warrant for Gaddafi was issued on 27 June. This was followed by an arrest warrant issued by Interpol on 8 September.

The government's use of the Libyan Air Force to strike civilians led to the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to create a Libyan no-fly zone on 17 March, though several countries involved in the resolution's enforcement have also carried out regular strike missions to degrade the offensive capacity of the Libyan Army and destroy the government's command and control capabilities, effectively acting in ''de facto'' support of anti-Gaddafi forces on the ground. 100 countries have recognized the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate representative, with many of those countries explicitly describing it as the legal interim government of the country due to the perceived loss of legitimacy on the part of Gaddafi's government.

Many states have also either issued travel advisories or attempted evacuations. Some evacuations were successful in either going to Malta or via land borders to Egypt or Tunisia; other attempts were hindered by tarmac damage at Benghazi's airport or refusals of permission to land in Tripoli. There were also several solidarity protests in other countries that were mostly composed of Libyan expatriates. Financial markets around the world had adverse reactions to the instability with oil prices rising to a two-and-a-half year high.

See also

Arab Spring

2011 Egyptian revolution

Human rights in Libya

List of modern conflicts in North Africa

Protests against the 2011 military intervention in Libya

Tunisian revolution

Free speech in the media during the 2011 Libyan civil war

Moussa Ibrahim, Gaddafi's spokesman

Battle of Sirte

Battle of Bani Walid

References

Further reading

External links

Live Blog Al Jazeera

Libya Reuters

Category:Arab Spring Category:Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Africa Category:Counter-terrorism in Libya Category:Guerrilla wars Category:History of Libya Category:Libyan society Category:Military history of Libya Category:Politics of Libya Category:Rebellions in Africa Category:Riots and civil disorder in Libya Category:War crimes in Libya Category:Wars involving Belgium Category:Wars involving France Category:Wars involving Jordan Category:Wars involving Libya Category:Wars involving NATO Category:Wars involving the Netherlands Category:Wars involving Qatar Category:Wars involving Spain Category:Wars involving Sweden Category:Wars involving the United States Category:Wars involving the United Kingdom

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name	Barbara Walters
birthname	Barbara Jill Walters
birth date	September 25, 1929
birth place	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
occupation	JournalistTelevision talk show host
years active	1961–present
religion	Judaism
spouse	Robert Henry Katz(1955-1958; annulled)Lee Guber(1963-1976; divorced)Merv Adelson (1981-1984; divorced)Merv Adelson(1986-1992; divorced)
children	Jacqueline Dena Guber Danforth
credits	''Today'' show anchor (1961–1976)''Not For Women Only'' host (1971–1976)''ABC Evening News'' anchor (1976–1978)''20/20'' host (1984–2004)''The View'' creator/co-host (1997–present)
salary	$12 million (2007) }}

Barbara Jill Walters (born September 25, 1929) is an American broadcast journalist and author, who has hosted morning television shows (''Today'' and ''The View''), the television newsmagazine (''20/20''), former co-anchor of the ''ABC Evening News'', and current contributor to ABC News.

Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's ''Today'', where she worked with Hugh Downs and later hosts Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent 25 years as co-host of ABC's newsmagazine ''20/20''. She was the first female co-anchor of network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ''ABC Evening News'', and continuing as a contributor to the network news division and its flagship program, ''ABC World News''.

Early life

Walters was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Louis "Lou" Walters and his wife, Dena Seletsky, both of whom were Jewish and descendants of refugees from the former Russian Empire, now Eastern Europe. Walters' paternal grandfather, Isaac Abrahams, was from what is now Łódź, Poland, and first immigrated to England, changing his name to Abraham Walters. Walters' father was born there c. 1896, and moved to the United States with his family in 1900. In 1937, her father opened the New York version of the Latin Quarter; he also was a Broadway producer (he produced the ''Ziegfeld Follies of 1943''). He also was the Entertainment Director for the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he imported the "Folies Bergere" stage show from Paris to the resort's main showroom. Walters' brother, Burton, died in 1932 of pneumonia. Walters' elder sister, Jacqueline, was born mentally disabled and died of ovarian cancer in 1985. Barbara has another half sister, Walda Walters Anderson born to a different mother and Barbara's father, Lou Walters. Walda is now a communications executive.

According to Walters, being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them. When she was a young woman, Walters' father lost his nightclubs and the family's penthouse on Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the Government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture." Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, to a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business."

After attending Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Birch Wathen Lenox School private schools in New York City, Walters graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College.

Career and accolades

After a brief period as a publicist with Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at CBS News, Walters joined NBC's ''The Today Show'' as a writer and researcher in 1961. She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl," handling lighter assignments and the weather. In her autobiography, she describes this era before the Women's Movement as a time when it was believed that nobody would take a woman seriously reporting "hard news". Previous "Today Girls" (whom Walters called "tea pourers") included Florence Henderson, Helen O'Connell, Estelle Parsons and Lee Meriwether. Within a year she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews. When Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first four questions. She was not named co-host of the show until McGee's death in 1974, when NBC officially designated Walters as the program's first female co-host.

Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ''ABC Evening News'' in 1976-78. Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters because he disliked having a co-anchor, even though he worked with former CBS colleague Howard K. Smith nightly on ABC for several years. In 1981, five years after the start of their short-lived ABC partnership and well after Reasoner returned to CBS News, Walters and her former co-anchor had a memorable (and cordial) ''20/20'' interview on the occasion of Reasoner's new book release.

Walters is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine ''20/20'' where she joined host Hugh Downs in 1979. Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of 9/11. She was also chosen to be the moderator for the third and final debate between candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, held at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the 1976 Presidential Election. In 1984, she moderated a Presidential debate held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Many of her regular and special programs are syndicated around the world. As of 2004, she is in semi-retirement as a broadcast journalist, but remains a correspondent for ABC News as well as a host of ABC's special programs.

On June 14, 2007, Walters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, a Women in Film Lucy Award, and a GLAAD Excellence in Media award. Her impact on the popular culture is illustrated by Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impersonation of her on ''Saturday Night Live'', featuring her idiosyncratic speech with its rounded "R."

In the fall of 2008, she was honored with the Disney Legends award, an award given to those who made an outstanding contribution to The Walt Disney Company, which owns the network ABC. That same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women's Agenda.

On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.

Interviews

On March 7, 2010, Barbara Walters announced she would no longer hold Oscar interviews, but will still be working with ABC and on her show, ''The View.''

In a November 2010 episode of ''The View'', while interviewing Larry King on his retirement from CNN, Walters alluded to her impending retirement, stating, "I know when my time's coming."

Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews. In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's President, Anwar Al Sadat, and Israel's Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century. They include the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife the Empress Farah Pahlavi; Russia's Boris Yeltsin; China's Jiang Zemin; the UK's Margaret Thatcher; Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as India's Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez among many others. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon Michael Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Anna Wintour, and in 1980 Lord Olivier. Walters considered Dr. Robert Smithdas, a deaf-blind man who spent his life improving the life of other individuals who are deaf-blind, as her most inspirational interview.

Walters was widely lampooned in 1981 (and often since) for having posed the question, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" But as she has often pointed out (and the video clips confirm) Hepburn initiated the discussion by saying that she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with the question, "What kind of a tree?"

During a story about Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Walters claimed that "for Castro, freedom begins with education." Some critics point to her characterization of Castro as freedom-loving and argue that it painted an inaccurate picture of his government.

On March 3, 1999, her interview of Monica Lewinsky was seen by a record 74 million viewers, the highest rating ever for a journalist's interview. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children about this matter?" and Lewinsky replied, "I guess Mommy made some mistakes," at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers, saying, "And that is the understatement of the century."

''The View''

Walters is a part-time host of the daytime talk show ''The View,'' of which she is also co-creator and co-executive producer with her business partner Bill Geddie. Walters described the show in its original opening credits as a forum for women of "different generations, backgrounds, and views." She added, "Be careful what you wish for..." The show's current co-hosts are Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. Previous co-hosts include Meredith Vieira, Lisa Ling, Rosie O'Donnell, Star Jones, and Debbie Matenopoulos.

In 2007 Barbara defended co-host O'Donnell about remarks the latter made against Donald Trump and the winner of the Miss USA pageant. Trump firmly responded by saying, "Barbara is off the list..."

Personal life

Walters has been married four times to three different men. "I'm convinced that you stay married when the sex is bad, only because you really want to be," she told ''The New York Times'' in 1996. "But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days." Her husbands were: Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant. They married on June 20, 1955, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The marriage was reportedly annulled in 1958.

Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner. They married on December 8, 1963, and divorced in 1976. They have one daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted the same year).

Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1984 and were married again on May 10, 1986, and divorced in 1992.

She reportedly dated gay lawyer Roy Cohn in college, and the lawyer said that he proposed marriage to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, but Walters denied this. She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline. In her autobiography, Walters says that Cohn got her father's warrant for "failure to appear" dismissed.

Walters, dated former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s, and was linked romantically to United States Senator John Warner in the 1990s.

In Walters's autobiography, ''Audition'', she claimed that she had an affair in the 1970s with Edward Brooke, then a married United States Senator from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether Walters also was married at the time. Walters said that the affair ended to protect their careers from scandal.

She announced on the May 10, 2010 episode of ''The View'', that she would be undergoing open heart surgery to replace a faulty heart valve; the aortic valve, which pumps blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Walters added that she knew for quite a while that she was suffering from aortic valve stenosis, even though she was symptom-free.

The procedure to fix the faulty heart valve "went well, and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome" Walters' spokeswoman, Cindi Berger, said in a statement on May 14, 2010.

On July 9, 2010, it was announced that Barbara Walters would return to ''The View'' and her Sirius XM satellite show ''Here's Barbara'' in September 2010.

Walters has been close friends with Fox News head Roger Ailes since the late 1960s.

Books

In the late 1960s, Walters wrote a magazine article, ''How to Talk to Practically Anyone About Practically Anything'', which drew upon the kinds of things people said to her, which were often mistakes. Shortly after the article appeared, she received a letter from Doubleday expressing interest in expanding it into a book. Walters felt that it would help "tongue-tied, socially awkward people — the many people who worry that they can't think of the right thing to say to start a conversation." She published the book in 1970, with the assistance of ghostwriter June Callwood. To Walters' great surprise, the book was a phenomenon. As of 2008, it had gone through eight printings, sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and had been translated into at least 6 different languages.

In 2008, she published her autobiography, ''Audition: A Memoir''.

Awards and nominations

Daytime Emmy Awards

1975 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''Today'')

1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2003 Award for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2003 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2009 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''The View'') (with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd)

2010 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

NAACP Image Award

2009 Award for Best Talk Series (''The View'')

2010 Nomination for Best Talk Series

Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award 1998 Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.

See also

Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People

References

External links

ABC News' "Time Tunnel" page containing clips of numerous newscasts on which Walters appeared

Excerpts from 2008 autobiography, ''Audition: A Memoir''

Barbara Walters Archive of American Television Interview

Category:1929 births Category:Living people Category:People from Brookline, Massachusetts Category:ABC News personalities Category:Alumni of women's universities and colleges Category:American Jews Category:American memoirists Category:American television news anchors Category:American television personalities Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni Category:Miami Beach Senior High School alumni Category:NBC News Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:People from New York Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni Category:American women journalists

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