BetweenTheLines

  Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook D eposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had been on the run for two months after the fall of Tripoli when rebels found him in a stormwater pipe near Sirte on October 20, 2011. He cowered as they held him by his arms, curly hair and frog-marched him out of the stinky pipe soaked in blood. Gaddafi, 69, was tortured before he was summarily executed. The ignominious end of the dictator, who had ruled Libya since 1969 and given himself lofty titles like “King of Kings of Africa’’, came months after Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s fall encouraged pro-democracy protests (Arab Spring) in the region. The protests threatened to uproot autocrats across the region as Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to quit while Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was toppled. ALSO READ: Why Years Before Taliban Takeover, Afghan Diplomat Khalili Saw It Coming  In Syria, the challenge to  Bashir al-Assad’s rule coincided with that of Gaddafi’s when protests erupted

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook A fghan diplomat Masood Khalili had just enrolled for PhD after finishing his master’s degree from Delhi University when communists seized power in Kabul in April 1978. His father, the iconic poet and academic Khalilullah, called him from Baghdad, where he was the Afghan ambassador, to break the news. He warned Khalili that the communists had come and Russians will follow. 'Go get your PhD from the mountains of Afghanistan,' Khalilullah told his 28-year-old son. Khalili immediately left Delhi to join Afghan rebels as a political officer in Peshawar, before entering Afghanistan. ALSO READ: West's post-1979 Afghan Misadventure Continues To Cast Long Shadow Khalilullah’s fears came true the following year when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Khalili responded by crisscrossing the country, mostly on his donkey, for the next nine years to mobilise Afghans against the occupiers. In between dodging bullets, the red army,