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WRITTEN BY:  JIM FLINK

ANCHOR:  JIM FLINK

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One of the top rebel commanders in Libya is dead.  Reportedly -- shot by his own forces -- though that claim is in doubt amidst the chaos.  It has set off fears -- of fracturing within the rebel camp.Euronews has details.

“Gen Abdel Nasser Younis defected from the Gaddafi regime in February.  While many welcomed the move, Younis was not trusted by all of his new comrades.  He was gunned down after being summoned back from the battlefield for questioning.”

But TIME notes, separating fact -- from furor -- is difficult. Even as the National Transition Council Leader -- Mustafa Abdul-Jalil -- tried to head off a firestorm.

“Jalil's evasiveness about the hit sparked accusations from Younes' backers that the general was set up and murdered by rival factions in the insurgency. Counter claims swarmed alleging Younes had been killed by Gaddafi supporters seeking to decapitate the rebels' military command...”

The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson notes, such is the nature of the fractious rebel coalition -- if you can call it that.  Begging the larger question -- who IS in charge?

“It would be easier to make sense of that if there weren’t also reports that Younes had actually been arrested, leading to suspicion that he might have been killed by someone on his own side. Younes had been wrapped up in a leadership struggle with other rebels; he wasn’t the only one who thought he should be in charge of their forces.”

Younes was a polarizing figure.  Entrusted with putting down the Libyan rebellion during the Arab Spring --he joined it instead. But Al Jazeera notes, not everyone trusted -- that he had really changed sides.

“Younes was one of Muammar Gaddafi’s most trusted generals.  The two men share history stretching back four decades.  He like Gaddafi was part of the officer corps that overthrew King Idris in 1969.  Until February, he held the sensitive post of Interior Minister.  Some even considered him the number two in the Libyan government.”

And because it appeared -- there was no single unifying face of leadership -- anything is possible. The Economist questions if Younis was trying to broker an end to the fighting, and a transition in power.

“If General Younes was indeed attempting to negotiate a settlement with the regime in Tripoli, was he freelancing or doing it with the blessing of at least some other members of the TNC?”

The Tripoli Post reports, the Transition National Council -- or TNC -- faces a new challenge:  How to stay unified, even as major western governments -- the U.S., U.K. and France -- have all recognized it as the legitimate Libyan government.

“TNC officials... have spent significant time from the moment of General Younis’ reported detention and certainly from the moment that news of his killing started to leak in an effort to mollify angry members of the commander’s Obeidi tribe, one of the largest and most influential in largely rebel-held eastern Libya.”

Transcript by Newsy. 

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