The Gaddafi Family Scrapbook

A Libya without Colonel Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, sounds just about right. I am most positive Libyans knew they would one day soon, see the end of a man they grew to hate. There is a saying the harder and darker it seems, the closer you are to a breakthrough and that's what got the Libyan people through those rough couple of months of their Arab Spring.

After 42 long years of years of an iron clad hold on a country and it's people, it all came to a tragic end with a bullet to the head. Leaving the city he knew as "home" to join his son, where ever he may be, Gaddafi went from living like kings to hiding in dirt tunnels and sleeping only a few hours, so he may see another sunrise.  With an over the top personality, swoons of female body guards and a mentality of never being in touch with reality, the once "Brother Leader" or "Guide of Revolution" never thought his last days would come to an end in a bloody fashion.

The remarkable never-before-seen family photos taken from the homes and compounds of Libya's now-deceased dictator.

Muammar plays with his daughter.

Hanging with the grandkids in one of his famous tents.

A young Col. Gaddafi addresses the crowd.  

Gaddafi in the 1970s.

 A celebration with friends and family.

 A man of the military.

A young Gaddafi with Gaafar Nimeiry of Sudan. 

Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, with Saddam Hussein.

A young Gaddafi alongside Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser,

greets a well-wisher.  

Gaddafi, as a young soldier.

 A dashing orator, in civilian garb...

 and military...

Gaddafi's war room...

Gaddafi in a sweatband with his wife, Safia al-Farkas.

With his family in the 1980s

All photos from ForeignPolicy.com Foreign Policy presents an exclusive collection of never-before-seen pictures and documents from Qaddafi's private homes and state intelligence ministries -- collected by Human Rights Watch emergencies director Peter Bouckaert and photographed by freelance photojournalist Michael Brown.