Background
He was born on 1944, at a village near Zuara, western Tripolitania.
He was born on 1944, at a village near Zuara, western Tripolitania.
Educated locally and at Tripoli, he entered the Military Academy in 1963 and he was commissioned with Qadafi in August 1965.
A hard-line officer who became one of the principal planners of the coup which overthrew the regime of King Idris on September 1, 1969. For the first few months after the coup he was ADC to Qadafi, living in spartan conditions at the Bab Azizia barracks, always at the beck and call of the revolutionary leader.
His first formal appointment was in September 1970 as Commander of the People’s Militia. In October 1970 he became Minister of Interior, holding the post until August 1971.
One of the most pro-Egyptian members of the RCC, he has been a leading delegate in Libya’s negotiating team for union with Egypt and he was present at the signing of the agreement at Tripoli on September 18, 1972. Qadafi’s confidence in him has been marked in a number of special missions which he has been given.
He did much of the committee work for the merger preparations with Egypt. Without any official explanation he was put back into government as Minister of Interior when al-Huni was withdrawn in November 1972. On December 7, 1972, he led a delegation to Uganda, meeting President Amin and handing over £1 million to help Moslems in Uganda.