Rival siblings with armed militias at their disposal

[maddezmom]

Published: February 21 2011 20:23 | Last updated: February 21 2011 20:23

Until the current popular uprising on the streets of Tripoli, one of the key battles facing Libyan’s ruler Colonel Muammer Gaddafi was the struggle to contain the scandals and rivalries among his own sons, according to dispatches from US diplomats in Libya’s capital.

The headline-grabbing international exploits of Col Gaddafi’s children “provided local observers with enough dirt for a Libyan soap opera”, diplomats write in one of the cables, part of a trove obtained by WikiLeaks and seen by the Financial Times. In the same cable diplomats portray a family in “a tailspin ... trying to put a stop to one rumour or another, in the name of defending the family’s honour”.


But these exploits had real consequences when it came to the question of who would succeed their father.

One cable, dated February 2010, enumerates an unfortunate cluster of alleged misdemeanours by the Gaddafi clan. Mutassim, the fourth son and National Security adviser, is reported to have brought in 2010 with a multimillion-dollar, alcohol-fuelled New Year’s eve Caribbean party in St Barts. His carousing “angered some locals, who viewed his activities as impious and embarrassing to the nation” and had damaged his bid to succeed his father.

more:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2f9586e6-3dea-11e0-99ac-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html#axzz1EapZyJ5V