Libyan Rebel Military Chief Dead

The killing of Abdel-Fattah Younis, in circumstances that remain murky, is a blow for the U.S., Britain, France and other countries backing Libya’s under-trained and divided opposition alliance.

Rebel security officers initially said they had arrested Younis for questioning about alleged ties to Gadhafi’s regime. Later, rebel political leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Younis had been summoned for questioning on military matters but was shot dead with two aides before he arrived. He said the rebels had arrested a suspect, but had not found the bodies.

Younis was Gadhafi’s feared security chief and his defection gave the rebels a major boost — but also left him hated on both sides. On Friday, speculation swirled about whether the regime or his own comrades had killed him, and what the death would mean for the deadlocked civil war.

“He had a lot of enemies,” Miles said. “It could be personal, it could be factional within the NTC,” the opposition National Transitional Council.

Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, said that “given the infighting among the rebels, probably some elements that are opposed to him did it.”

Younis was among the army officers who joined the 1969 coup that brought Gadhafi to power, and remained the dictator’s ally for more than 40 years, as a pillar of the country’s feared security apparatus.

April 19, 2011 - General Hifter made it clear that he viewed General Younes as an officer who was serving in a support or logistical role, and he explicitly blamed him for a string of humiliating retreats by rebels along the seesawing front line between Brega and Ajdabiya, most recently on Sunday, when seven rebels were killed during a counterattack by government forces that turned into a near rout.
“All of what happened there resulted from the command of Abdul Fattah Younes,” he said. “That’s why I came back to take charge, and in the next couple days I will take charge of every unit, not one unit. I am getting ready to lead the forces from now on.”
General Hifter claimed that his new authority over the forces in the field came from the Transitional National Council, and he said it was not true that the council had removed him from military command after a contentious meeting in late March and handed the top position to General Younes, Colonel Qaddafi’s former interior minister. “That was only a wish on their part,” he said. A high-ranking officer on his staff said the civilian officials did not dare to remove General Hifter. “If they so much as thought of doing that, the people would kill them,” he said.
General Hifter is widely popular among rebel fighters as a hero of the Chad war, when he was a colonel in charge of Libyan troops who invaded their southern neighbor in an expansionist war that Colonel Qaddafi eventually lost. Later he fell out with the colonel and went into exile in the United States for 20 years, returning about a month after the rebellion began and appointing himself field commander. When his removal from command was announced late in March, scuffles broke out involving his supporters angry at the council’s action. General Younes, on the other hand, was Colonel Qaddafi’s friend and interior minister until he defected to the rebel side on Feb. 22. “Younes spent his whole life behind Qaddafi,” said an officer close to General Hifter. - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/world/africa/20benghazi.html

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