With a drone light show, fireworks and traditional songs, Libya was on Tuesday celebrating the 15th anniversary of the fall of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who leads the Tripoli-based government, announced that February 17 would become a national holiday.
The former regime fell after an armed, Nato-backed protest that ultimately killed Qaddafi in 2011, leading to the country splitting into two rival administrations in the east and west.
But public disdain towards Qaddafi's rule extended to his family, including his son Saif Al Islam Qaddafi, who was once seen as his father's heir.
Saif Al Islam, 53, was this month killed – in mysterious circumstances – in Zintan, western Libya during “direct confrontation” with four gunmen who broke into his home, his office said. Despite not holding any official position, he was once seen as the second-most powerful figure in Libya after his father, who ruled for more than four decades. He shaped policy and mediated high-profile, sensitive diplomatic missions.
Mr Al Islam had been based in Zintan since 2011, first in captivity and obscurity and then in his candidacy in an aborted Libyan election in 2021, which made clear his hopes of a comeback. But the election never took place and the younger Qaddafi faded from view again.
He had been wanted by the International Criminal Court over war crimes committed in 2011 and was disqualified from Libya's presidential race after a court in Tripoli sentenced him to death over those same crimes in 2015.
After Mr Al Islam's death, there was no clear alternative for pro-Qaddafi hardliners, thus ending the once powerful family's political legacy in the country.
Today, post-Qaddafi Libya, a country rich in oil and gas, is reeling after militias vied to fill the void left by the toppled regime. Many of those armed groups function as unofficial local authorities, filling the same roles once imagined for Qaddafi’s People’s Committees.
