The embarrassing truth is that the average Libyan was better off - more secure in his home, more likely to be able to make a decent living, less likely to have his head blown off at the supermarket - while living under the reign of despot, mass murderer and sexual predator Muammar Gaddafi than today. "Gaddafi chose to build the idea of a state around his personality," said Michael Nayebi-Oskoui, senior Middle East analyst for US global intelligence firm Stratfor.Ousted and slain in October 2011, "he used a military funded by oil to crush any opposition to himself instead of building state institutions that could survive beyond him".Libya, a largely tribal nation, descended into chaos after Gaddafi's fall, with two governments vying for power and armed groups battling for control of its vast energy resources.A militia alliance that includes radical Islamists overran Tripoli in August 2014, establishing a government rivalling that of the internationally recognised administration, which was forced to flee to eastern Libya.Months of UN-brokered talks to persuade the warring sides to agree to a peace deal and form a national unity government have run aground.Taking advantage of the chaos, the Islamic State terrorist group has gained a foothold in Libya and people-smugglers are again ferrying illegal migrants from its shores to Europe on rickety boats and contributing to thousands of deaths. But the focus remains on Gaddafi, the flamboyant strongman who called himself "Guide of the Revolution" and declared Libya a Jamahiriya or "state of the masses" run by local committees."He will make headlines for a long time because the regime he consolidated will need a long time to be undone," an official of the Tripoli-based government said."Everything he left behind is corrupted: politics, the economy, society, even sports, and we need to change all that: all the legislation, all the rules."Gaddafi, 69, was captured and shot after being dragged from the concrete drainpipe in which he had been hiding in his home town, Sirte, on October 20 2011.Three days later the transitional authorities announced "the total liberation" of Libya.Known for his droning speeches and Bedouin robes, he ruled Libya for four decades after leading a military coup that toppled a Western-backed monarchy in 1969."There was no institutionalised state in Libya, which led to chaos after his removal," said Nayebi-Oskoui."He pitched tribes and regions and different ethnic groups against one another for decades, which is why Libyans and the international community have struggled to create a national identity in his absence."Last week Scottish prosecutors said they had identified two new Libyan suspects in the bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, which killed 270 people.Scottish media named one of the two suspects as former Gaddafi intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi and the other as Abu Agila Mas'ud.Senussi was sentenced to death in July for crimes committed during the uprising, along with Seif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and one-time heir apparent, and seven other people linked to the slain strongman.Mas'ud is reportedly behind bars in Libya, where Senussi has been in custody since 2012.Scottish prosecutors said they are suspects in the bombing, along with former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only other person convicted in the case, who died in 2012 protesting his innocence.Libya admitted responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and Gaddafi's regime paid $2.7-billion in compensation to the victims' families.Gaddafi has left behind a "fractured nation", said Nayebi-Oskoui.The Tripoli government official agreed."He is still remembered and he will be among us until we can overcome the 40 years of chaos he sowed."On the walls of Gaddafi's former Tripoli compound graffiti ridicule the dictator, including one depicting him in a trash can."We used to be afraid even to look at his compound," said Ahmad, a cigarette vendor who works nearby."Generations will pass before we can overcome the fear he instilled in us." AFP..