Rebel leader’s death ‘mystery’

LIBYA’S rebels said their military commander was shot dead in an incident that was shrouded in mystery, pointing either to factional infighting within the movement trying to oust Muammar Gaddafi or to an assassination by Gaddafi loyalists.

The killing of Abdel Fattah Younes, who for years was in Gaddafi’s inner circle before defecting to become the military chief in the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC), set back a movement at last beginning to acquire cohesion as international pressure on the Gaddafi regime intensifies.

Mourners brought a coffin carrying the burned and bullet-riddled body of Younes into the main square of Benghazi, the rebels’ eastern stronghold.

“He had been shot with bullets and burned,” said Younes’s nephew, Abdul Hakim.