FLASH
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Libya's strongman and longtime ruler of 42 years, Muammar Gaddafi, was the first leader to be killed following the Arab Spring unrest.
Like many dictators, kings and military rulers throughout the Arab world had no idea that their oppressive governments would reach a tipping point and hit rock bottom.
Popular discontent and rebellious uprisings brought drastic changes and the reign of autocrats. But what was the fate of some of the most brutal dictators of the Arab world?
-President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia, deposed after 23 years of government)
Tunisia's former president, who ruled for 23 years, was one of the first autocrats to fall. Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled with his family to Saudi Arabia in January 2011 after a month of anti-government protests in the north African country that sparked the Arab Spring. Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in the deaths of the demonstrators. After years of treatment for prostate cancer, Ben Ali died in 2019, aged 83.
- President Hosni Mubarak (Egypt, was overthrown after 30 years of government)
Having ruled Egypt for three decades, Hosni Mubarak was the second Arab leader to be toppled by protests in 2011. He resigned on February 11 of that year following mass demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square and across the country.
Mubarak, who took power in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, ruled the most populous country in the Middle East with punitive control, using deep state surveillance and cronyism, usually with Western support.
After a trial that gripped the nation, Mubarak was jailed for life in 2012 for plotting to kill protesters, but was later acquitted. The former air force commander died in February 2020.
-President Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen, was overthrown and later killed, after 30 years of government)
Despite a nationwide popular uprising, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president in power since 1980, managed to hang on for several months in 2011. He repeatedly claimed he would step down while brokering deals with the country's small elite and governments. the foreigner.
After nine months of mass protests and a bomb attack on his palace that left him badly burned and bedridden, Saleh agreed to transfer his powers to the vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. In the years that followed, he fought a devastating civil war before being killed by Houthi rebels - a faction of former enemies turned allies - after they said he retaliated against them.
-Muammar Gaddafi (Libya, overthrown and brutally murdered by rebels after 42 years of rule)
Libya's strongman and longtime ruler of 42 years, Muammar Gaddafi, was the first leader to be killed following the Arab Spring unrest. Responding to a pro-democracy uprising with crushing death, the mercurial colonel who gained world fame for his narcissism plunged his country into a bloody eight-month civil war. Calling his critics "rats", Gaddafi sent forces to attack the eastern city of Benghazi, which had revolted. In response, NATO imposed a no-fly zone over the country, coordinating with rebel forces. On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi, still fighting an apparently losing war in his ancestral home of Sirte, was captured and killed. He was 69 years old.
-President Bashar al-Assad (Syria, deposed after 25 years and fled to Moscow)
Backed by Syria's notoriously brutal secret police, Bashar al-Assad was believed in early 2011 to be an autocrat capable of crushing public dissent inspired by the Arab Spring before it took off. However, Assad underestimated his own people, and although it took longer to emerge, small peaceful protests soon spread. In response, the eye doctor-turned-dictator launched a bloody crackdown, sparking a civil war. With his forces bombing hospitals and bakeries as well as chemical weapons attacks, the Syrian leader managed to maintain his title with significant military and financial assistance from his allies in Moscow and Tehran. All this to be overthrown 13 years later, where on December 8, 2024, he was forced to leave Syria and flee to Russia, after the rebels took power.
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