Posted on 07/28/2011 2:32:31 PM PDT by Beaten Valve
The head of the Libyan rebel's armed forces and two of his aides were killed by gunmen Thursday, the head of the rebel leadership said.
The death of Abdel Fattah Younes was announced at a press conference in the de facto rebel capital, Benghazi, by the head of the rebels' National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil. He told reporters that rebel security had arrested the head of the group behind the killing.
Rebel security had arrested Younes and two of his aides early on Thursday from their operations room near the rebels' eastern front. Security officials said at the time that Younes was to be questioned about suspicions his family still had ties to Moammar Gaddafi's regime.
Younes was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February.
Abdul Jalil said that Younes had been summoned for questioning regarding "a military matter." He said Younes and his two aides were shot before they arrived for questioning.
Abdel-Jalil called Younes "one of the heroes of the 17th of February revolution," a name marking the date of early protests against Gaddafi's regime.
While he criticised Gaddafi for seeking to break the unity of rebel forces, he did not say directly that Younes' killers were associated with the regime. Instead, he issued a stiff warning about "armed groups" in rebel-held cities, saying they needed to join the fight against Gaddafi or risk being arrested by security forces.
There were reports of gunfire outside the hotel in Benghazi following the press conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.aljazeera.net ...
Out of the way and a martyr at the same time,
can you beat that!
Probably an al-Qaeda hit. They`re going to move to solidify their position at some.. looks like it`s underway.
TWITTER:
Loyalists told me gen younes was executed by a group of rebels while facing the committee
http://twitter.com/#!/jenanmoussa
at some = at some time
Fixed.
Libyan Islamists seize arms, take hostages (February 21, 2011)
Kaddafy promised to pay four million dollars to whomever killed him.
I bet he was killed by his own side for some reason and he gets to be a martyr too
Video clips posted to opposition Facebook and YouTube pages showed Heftir touring the front lines, much as Younes had after his appointment, looking very much the general. Heftir briefly appeared to replace Younes as the commander of the rebel forces. In late March, a spokesman for the rebel military announced as much in a press conference. In late April, El-Siddik Heftir, the general's son, told Al Jazeera that his father was responsible for commanding rebel troops in the field, while Younes served as chief of staff back at headquarters. Omar Hariri, defence minister at the time, represented the military before the NTC, he said.
El-Siddik, who had returned to Benghazi to serve as an aide to his father, said the three men worked together as a kind of military council and made decisions collectively. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the NTC - and the man who sources said issued a warrant for Younes’s arrest on Thursday - was a figurehead and commander in chief only in name, Heftir said.
Younes was Gaddafi's interior ministerThe minister in charge of school hot lunch programs wasn't available, so the rebels put the next best thing in charge.
Muammar Gaddafi's trusted adviser who turned against him in Benghazi and led the uprising
Head of the rebel forces, Abdel Fattah Younes attends a news conference in Benghazi, April 6, 2011 [Photo: Reuters ]
ROFLMAO
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