Libya’s rebels were in disarray on Friday after the mysterious killing of their leading military commander triggered fears that opposition fighters battling to oust Col Muammar Gaddafi could instead turn their weapons on each other.
Head of the rebel forces Abdel Fattah Younes Photo: REUTERS
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent11:16AM BST 29 Jul 2011
Units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah Younes, who was shot dead on Thursday, reportedly abandoned the rebel front line near the oil town of Brega and poured into the opposition capital of Benghazi to avenge their commander’s death.
The opposition’s provisional government, the Transitional National Council (TNC), attempted to blame the death of Gen Younes on agents loyal to Col Gaddafi operating under cover in Libya’s rebel-held east.
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the provisional government, appealed for calm, warning that the killing of Gen Younes was orchestrated by the Gaddafi regime to create divisions among the rebels.
"I ask you to refrain from paying attention to the rumours that Gaddafi’s forces are trying to spread within our ranks,” he said.
But the explanation received short shrift among the general’s supporters, who appeared convinced that he had either been tortured to death or executed on the orders of his rivals within the rebel leadership.
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Dozens of gunmen from Gen Younes’s Obeidi tribe, the largest in eastern Libya, opened fire on a hotel in Benghazi where Mr Abdul-Jalil, the head of the provisional government, had earlier held a press conference to announce the commander’s death.
After shattering windows, they broke through a security cordon and sprayed the hall where the announcement was made with rifle fire. Mr Abdul-Jalil had already left the building.
There are now fears that unless the anger of Obeidi tribesmen loyal to Gen Younes is assuaged, a fratricidal war within rebel ranks could break out.
Hours before he was shot dead, along with two of his aides, Gen Younes was summoned for questioning by four rebel judges who were apparently investigating illicit contacts he may have had with the Gaddafi regime. It is unclear whether the commander was in custody when he was killed.
Gen Younes, who served as Col Gaddafi’s defence and interior minister, defected to the regime at the outset of the uprising in February, but he never gained the trust of many rebels who saw him as one of the enforcers of the Libyan leader’s brutal rule.
Suspicions grew further after Col Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha hinted in April that the regime was involved in secret negotiations with the general. A senior official in Tripoli told the Daily Telegraph earlier this month that Gen Younes was the regime’s main point of contact with the rebels.
Gen Younes was also engaged in a very public feud with the rebels’ most celebrated battlefield commander, Khalifa Hifter.
Gen Hifter is considered to have impeccable revolutionary credentials after publicly splitting with Col Gaddafi after Libya lost its disastrous war with Chad in the 1980s.
The rift between Gen Younes and Gen Hifter was seen as an important factor in the pervasive chaos along the front line as the two frequently countermanded one another’s orders.
With Gen Younes, now out of the picture, it is possible that the rebels may find greater cohesion.
Support from Gen Younes among the Obeidi is also far from universal. In the eastern city of Tobruk, many Obeidi pledged fealty to Gen Suleiman Mahmoud who was said to distrust Gen Younes, even though they were kinsmen.
But the commander still had significant support within his tribe, as well as within the units he led, and a backlash seems inevitable. If it is limited in scope and can be dealt with quickly, the death of Gen Younes may prove to be little more than an unwelcome distraction in the campaign to unseat Col Gaddafi.
But the fear is that anything of a greater magnitude could be far more damaging, potentially even undermining the ability of the rebels to win the war itself.
