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Gaddafi and Ilyumzhinov get down to some serious gaming on Sunday. via Euronews, YouTube screengrab.
Gaddafi

Checkmates: Colonel Gaddafi plays chess with renowned Russian eccentric

With few friends in the west, Gaddafi took on the president of the World Chess Federation in Libya on Sunday.

NO DOUBT PLOTTING his next move, Colonel Gaddafi spent a relaxed Sunday afternoon playing chess with the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) yesterday.

With war raging all around him and NATO n0w seemingly trying to target him in its airstrikes,  the relaxed Gaddafi decided to take on Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Russian multi-millionaire who heads FIDE, in a sporting looking game of chess.

The Libyan leader who has few friends in the Western world these days did battle with a man who once claimed he had hosted aliens on his balcony in Moscow, according to the Guardian.

Watch the action here via Euronews:

The two men are said to have played for around two hours on a chess board crafted by artisans in Kalmykia, the small Buddhist constituent Republic in Russia that Ilyumzhinov was once governer of.

Afterwards, Ilyumzhinov told AFP that he had expressed his condolences to Gaddafi over the recent death of his son and grandchildren and said that the 69-year-old ‘Brother Leader’ made clear he had no intention of leaving Libya:

Gaddafi stated that he is not going to leave Libya, stressing that it is his motherland and a land where his children and grandchildren died.

He also said that he does not understand which post he needs to step down from.

This refers to Gaddafi’s claim that as he officially is not the prime minister, president nor king of Libya, he has no position to give up.

Related: Rebels smuggle weapons from Tunisia into Libya, as Gaddafi vows to fight to death >