Amazonian Guard
All-female elite unit of bodyguards
The Amazonian Guard (also the "Amazons") was an unofficial name given to an all-female elite cadre of bodyguards officially known as the Revolutionary Nuns (Arabic: الراهبات الثوريات, ar-rāhibāt ath-thawriyyāt), tasked with protecting Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the Republic of Libya from 1969 to 2011.
Formation
The group was formed in the early 1980s, after Gaddafi's official resignation as Libyan head of state in favor of the title of Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. According to Joseph T. Stanik, Gaddafi employed a cadre of female bodyguards because he believed that an Arab gunman would have difficulty firing at women. However, it has also been submitted by other authors that Gaddafi's female bodyguards were, in reality, just an aspect of the dictator's well-known eccentric showmanship and his fondness for surrounding himself with young women.
Gaddafi would usually travel with fifteen of his Amazonian Guards assigned to security or housekeeping.
Training
Candidates for the Amazonian Guard participated in firearms and martial arts training at a special academy, were required to take an oath of chastity, and then were chosen by Gaddafi.
Incidents
In 1998, one of Gaddafi's female bodyguards was killed and seven others were wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed Gaddafi's motorcade. It was claimed that the dead guard, Aisha, was Gaddafi's favorite and threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets.
In November 2006, as Gaddafi arrived at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, 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 (25 mi) journey to the capital on foot, and could be persuaded to yield only after intervention by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who coincidentally was also at the airport.
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This entry incorporates text from “Amazonian Guard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.