Why did Saif al-Islam Gaddafi have to die?

"His name offered an alternative line of succession that Libya's rival elites could neither control nor neutralise. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was shot 19 times inside his compound in Zintan, a mountain town in western Libya, where he had lived since his capture in 2011. Four masked men entered the compound after disabling the security cameras. Roughly 90 minutes earlier, his guards had withdrawn from the area for reasons that remain unexplained."

"When the shooting ended, the assailants did not flee. They left. No gunfight. No pursuit. No claim of responsibility. The perpetrators vanished into the kind of silence that, in Libya, usually means the killers have nothing to fear from an investigation. Saif was the son of Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for more than four decades before being overthrown and killed in the 2011 revolution."

"Since 2014, the country has been divided between two rival power centres. In the west, successive governments in Tripoli, the latest led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, derive their authority from United Nations recognition. In the east, renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar controls territory through military force, backed by the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt, while a paper government in Benghazi provides civilian cover for what is effectively military rule."

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was killed in Zintan in a targeted, well-planned operation involving four masked gunmen who disabled security cameras and faced no resistance. His guards withdrew prior to the attack for unexplained reasons, and the assailants left without claiming responsibility, suggesting impunity. Saif's lineage as Muammar Gaddafi's son posed a potential alternative succession that threatened Libya's rival elites. Libya has been divided since 2014 between UN-recognized authorities in Tripoli and Khalifa Haftar's Russia-, UAE- and Egypt-backed military control in the east, with neither side holding national elections.

Read at www.aljazeera.com