Libyan civil war 13 March 2011: Alleged suicide attack on Bab al-Azizia On 20 March 2011, it was reported by the anti-Gaddafi Al Manara Media that Khamis had died from injuries sustained when pilot Muhammad Mokhtar Osman allegedly crashed his plane into
Bab al-Azizia a week earlier. This was not confirmed by any independent news source. The crashing of the plane itself had also not been previously reported or confirmed by any independent media except Al Manara and the Algerian
Shuruk newspaper, which is closely connected to Al Manara, and with it there is a possibility of the reports being part of the propaganda operations by the opposition. The pro-Gaddafi Libyan government subsequently denied that Khamis was killed on 21 March. U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton stated that she was aware of reports that one of Gaddafi's sons had been killed in non-coalition air strikes, after hearing them from "many different sources", but that the "evidence is not sufficient" for her to confirm this. On 25 March 2011,
Al Arabiya television reported that a source had confirmed the death of Khamis, though others including
Al Jazeera continued to call it a rumor. On 29 March 2011, the Libyan government showed what it said was live footage of Khamis greeting supporters in
Tripoli, in an attempt to refute the claims, though it had used false live images before and these images were not verified. On 9 June 2011, a captured pro-Gaddafi soldier in
Misrata told the rebels that Khamis was alive in
Zliten, and was leading the soldiers there.
5 August 2011: Airstrike in Zliten On 5 August 2011, citing spies operating among the ranks of forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, Mohammed Zawawi, a spokesman for the United Revolutionary Forces, told the
Agence France Press news agency that Khamis had been killed overnight, stating that "there was an aircraft attack by
NATO on the Gaddafi operations room in Zliten and there are around 32 Gaddafi troops killed. One of them is Khamis." This report was officially denied by Libyan government spokesman
Moussa Ibrahim. "It's false news. They invented the news about Mr. Khamis Gaddafi in Zliten to cover up their killing," Ibrahim told
Reuters in Tripoli. "This is a dirty trick to cover up their crime in Zliten and the killing of the al-Marabit family." NATO was also unable to confirm the reports of Khamis's death. On 9 August, a man who appeared to be Khamis was on Libyan state television speaking to a woman who had allegedly been severely injured by a NATO airstrike.
22 August 2011: Reports of bodies in Tripoli On 22 August, Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of both Khamis and his father's intelligence chief
Abdullah Senussi may have been discovered in Tripoli during the
battle for the city. However, a rebel commander later stated that he believed Khamis was in
Bab al-Azizia. Senussi was found alive and captured in
Mauritania on 17 March 2012, and was extradited to Libya on 5 September for trial.
29 August 2011: Airstrike near Tarhuna On 29 August, it was reported that anti-Gaddafi fighters 60 km south of
Tripoli claimed that a NATO
Apache helicopter had fired on Khamis Gaddafi's
Toyota Land Cruiser, destroying the vehicle. A man who claimed to be Khamis Gaddafi's bodyguard said he had been killed. No visual confirmation was immediately available. Several days later,
The Guardian interviewed a former guard being held captive in
Tarhuna. His personal guard, Abdul Salam Taher Fagri, a 17-year-old from
Sabha, recruited in Tripoli, later confirmed that Khamis was indeed killed in this attack. He told the newspaper "I was in the truck behind him ... when his car was hit. He was burned." Three other guards being held in separate cells apparently gave similar accounts, leading their captors to believe the accounts of all four to be credible. Some accounts of the attack that reportedly killed Gaddafi suggested fire from a
technical, rather than a helicopter, destroyed his vehicle. The
National Transitional Council claimed on 4 September that it was now certain Khamis was dead and had been buried near
Bani Walid. In mid-September 2011, a report stated that Gaddafi was in Bani Walid, but had left the city and his men to their fate. However, the
International Business Times reported on 15 September that Khamis Gaddafi was still presumed dead. On 15 October, the Syrian-based pro-Gaddafi TV station
Arrai TV posted a message mourning his death on 29 August. In April 2012,
New York Times journalist Robert Worth met with former Tripoli Yarmouk prison captor Marwan Gdoura, who confessed that after the execution of around 100 prisoners he fled the city with some 200 loyalists under the command of Khamis Gaddafi, who was killed in gunbattle. Afterwards, he witnessed his older brother
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi receiving condolences in Bani Walid. On 17 October 2012, a report from Human Rights Watch said "Khamis Gaddafi, a son of Muammar who commanded the elite 32nd "Khamis" Brigade of the Libyan military, was killed on 29 August as he fled Tripoli, in what is believed to have been a NATO airstrike on his convoy. In February 2026, Khamis was confirmed to have been buried in
Bani Walid, Libya.
Posthumous allegations and later burial confirmation On 29 August 2011, the
International Criminal Court was reportedly planning to charge Khamis with
crimes against humanity. Khamis reportedly died in a NATO airstrike later that same day. At least one report published after the capture of
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi asserted that the older Gaddafi told interrogators that Khamis Gaddafi was still alive and may be hiding in
Tarhuna. On 25 February 2012,
Stratfor reported the capture of Khamis Gaddafi by fighters from Zintan. This was denied by the NTC. Amid a
military campaign against Gaddafi loyalists in
Bani Walid, the deputy prime minister of Libya claimed in a tweet that Khamis Gaddafi was killed during fighting in the town on 20 October 2012, a year to the day Gaddafi's father Muammar was
captured and killed by rebel forces in
Sirte. A statement from the Libyan National Congress's spokesman, Omar Hamdan, claimed Gaddafi was killed "in battle", but gave no further details. His body was purportedly found after a day of heavy fighting between the town's pro-Gaddafi garrison and militias allied to the Libyan government. A government spokesman denied that there was any official confirmation about the capture of Mussa Ibrahim to
Agence France-Presse, and did not even talk about the rumor of Khamis Gaddafi's death. The
Associated Press described the report of Gaddafi's death as an unconfirmed rumor. Musa Ibrahim, the former spokesman of Muammar Gaddafi, personally disproved the message on the arrest saying he was not even in Libya and denied the most recent reports on the death of Khamis. On 24 October, government spokesman Nasser Al-Manaa retracted and apologized for false reports from the government and the National Congress regarding the killing of Gaddafi and the capture of Ibrahim. Khamis was later confirmed to have been buried in Bani Walid, with elder brother
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi later being buried next to him in February 2026. ==References==