In Pictures: Gaddafi’s intelligence compound

A look inside deposed leader’s intelligence agency headquarters in Tripoli and the trove of secret files left behind.

Intelligence Compound Pics

Al Jazeera recently gained access to the Tripoli headquarters of Libya’s intelligence agency where we uncovered evidence that influential Americans tried to help the now-deposed Libyan leader cling to power.

The intelligence compound was used by Abdullah Senussi – Muammar Gaddafi’s brother-in-law and director of military intelligence, who is now wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Targeted multiple times by NATO jets, it now sits empty, guarded by a few rebel soldiers with stacks of files, equipment and images of Gaddafi inside.

Guided by an anxious rebel guard, Al Jazeera’s Evan Hill photographs remnants of the once-feared building – now a symbol of how Gaddafi’s regime has been all but toppled. 

undefined
1) The headquarters of Muammar Gaddafi’s intelligence services sits burned and destroyed in central Tripoli

 

undefined
2) The precision of NATO air strikes was evident. The building on the left has collapsed while for the other on the right, the rooms were all intact with only the windows blown out

 

undefined
3) This building, where the accountant’s office is located, was relatively undamaged by air strikes. Its rooms had instead been broken apart by people searching through cabinets and closets.

 

undefined
4) This building has suffered a direct hit from a NATO strike, blowing all the way through to the basement.

 

undefined
5) Inside the building, the precision damage is obvious.

 

undefined
6) A hastily taped-up sign in front of the higher-ranking officers’ hallway reads: “Entry Forbidden”.

 

undefined
7) Several old portraits of Gaddafi sit on the floor in one of the high-ranking officers’ rooms.

 

undefined
8) At an accountant’s office, someone had attempted to physically rip apart a stack of files.

 

undefined
9) Rows of files sit on shelves in the accountant’s office. In neighbouring rooms, Al Jazeera found minutes of apparent meetings between Libyan officials and former US diplomats, a list of official greetings from foreign embassies to the Libyan military intelligence service and a folder marked Musa Sadr – an Iranian Shia leader who infamously disappeared in Libya in 1978. The Sadr file was quickly taken away by guards.

 

undefined
10) Much of the paperwork in this office, strangely, dealt with the Libyan Arabian Horse Breeders Society. These boxes held files mostly on business dealings with the Society.

 

undefined
11) A catalogue from a weapons manufacturer in Belarus is on the floor of one office.

 

undefined
12) Three VHS tapes are spotted atop a filing cabinet. One appears to contain footage of a MiG-29, a 1980s Russian fighter that apparently had never been used by Libya in its air force.

 

undefined
13) Large satellite images of Libyan cities, measuring roughly one metre by one metre, are left abandoned in the hallway outside an office. The images included Sirte, Bin Jawwad, Sidra, Sultan, Nawfaliya.

 

undefined
14) Inside the foyer of another building, bags of carefully shredded paper sat stacked in a corner, piled with food scraps and coffee cups

 

undefined
15) In an officer’s office, more bags of shredded paper sit in a corner next to a shredder and an ashtray

 

undefined
16) One photo managed to stay hanging on a wall:  a photo of Gaddafi meeting Nelson Mandela
Source: Al Jazeera