Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi son, was gunned down when four masked men attacked him in his residence in Zintan county.
According to available information, the incident took place in the western Libyan city of Zintan, where he had been living for the past several years.
Several international sources, including the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya and the Libyan state news agency LANA, have confirmed his death. According to the report, four masked gunmen attacked his residence in Zintan. The attackers disabled the house’s CCTV cameras before the attack and then opened fire indiscriminately on Saif al-Islam, who was in the garden, killing him on the spot. His advisor Abdullah Othman and lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi also confirmed his death on social media.
The Libyan Attorney General’s Office has launched an investigation into the incident, and forensic teams have confirmed that the death was caused by gunshot wounds after inspecting the scene. Although no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, Libya’s powerful military unit, the 444th Combat Brigade, has strongly denied involvement. Some sources are also claiming that it was a targeted operation aimed at removing a key and controversial figure from Libya’s political landscape.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was 53, was long considered his father’s successor. He went into hiding after the 2011 revolution and then spent years in prison. In 2021, he surprised everyone by filing nomination papers for the presidential election, but those elections were postponed. His death is being seen as the end of a major vacuum in Libyan politics and a major obstacle to future electoral processes, which could have repercussions for the situation in the entire region.
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