The Triple-D Brigade (aka Gaddafi's Amazonian Guard)

[natehale1971]

With the aparent fall of Gaddafi, I woner if the new government will keep the "The Triple-D Brigade" or not...

The Amazonian Guard (also "the Amazons") is an unofficial name given by Western journalists to an all-female elite cadre of bodyguards officially known as al-rāhibāt al-thawriyyāt "The Revolutionary Nuns", and sometimes also unofficially called "the Green Nuns," tasked with protecting the former leader of Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi.

The group was formed in the early 1980s, after Gaddafi's official resignation as Libyan head of state in favour of the title of "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". This came as a surprise, as Gaddafi was known for his misogynistic outbursts during the 1970s, and in his Green Book he had made clear that he saw the role of women confined to housekeeping and motherhood.

Gaddafi reportedly employed a cadre of female bodyguards because he believed that an Arab gunman would have difficulty firing at women. But it has also been submitted that Gaddafi's female bodyguards are in reality just an aspect of the dictator's well-known eccentric showmanship and his fondness of surrounding himself with young women.

Candidates for the Amazonian Guard undergo extensive firearms and martial arts training at a special academy, must take an oath of chastity, and must be hand-picked by Gaddafi himself. Members of this bodyguard are allowed privileges such as dressing in Western-style fatigues and wearing makeup, or displaying Western hair styles and high heels.

Libyan sources claimed that in June 1998, one of Gaddafi's female bodyguards was killed and seven other wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed the Colonel's motorcade. It was claimed that the dead guard, Aisha, was Gaddafi's favourite and threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets.

In November 2006, as Gaddafi arrived at Abuja airport, Nigeria, with a 200-strong troop of heavily armed bodyguards, a diplomatic incident was caused as security officials tried to disarm them. Gaddafi furiously walked away, gesturing that he intended to cover the 40 km to the capital on foot, and could only be persuaded to yield after intervention by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who happened to be at the airport by chance.