Talk:Transitional National Council
What do we know about the Libyan opposition force? Our Media is rejoicing in their victory but who is behind all this? I do not know, my writing is my opinion based on minor knowledge of the players. It is also intended to simply get the reader thinking and to play the devil’s advocate so to speak. I have included an article on this that I think is very much worth writing. This is my thoughts on that article. I am not claiming my statements are my beliefs or that I believe the writer of this article…this is all merely something to debate and contemplate in the interest of education.
That said, it is a fact that General Fattah Yunes was assassinated. My hope by starting this conversation is to figure out the who & why. Yunes was the temporary Commander of the Transitional National Council who are the rebel forces attempting to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. Although given that title, many rebels did not trust him because of his former close ties to Gadhafi. He was a henchman and close associate of the ruler for over 40 years and just a few months ago denounced him, switched sides, then was put in command of rebels. Now this all could be legit and he may be sincere and have nothing but the best at heart for the Libyan people, we may never know his true intentions now that he is dead, but that was cause for suspicion and many believed him to be in contact with Gadhaif and still working for him as a ‘Trojan horse’.
I looked into this deeper and Aljazeera is claiming that he had been summonsed by the TNC for a ‘military matter’ that night. We he arrived he was to be arrested by the NTC forces and was to be questioned regarding the charge that he was indeed still working for Gadhafi. However before the arrest but at the location of the meeting he was assassinated.
Again according to Aljazeera, there were two aspects of this story that didn’t settle well with me. First, Yunes’ men on the scene were firing their weapons in the air in anger and yelling: “you killed him” directed at the TNC. Secondly, Yunes’ nephew claims his body was returned to the family riddled with bullets and badly burnt. Why would he have been burnt if the assignation had occurred as the media and the NTC is reporting?
So who did it and why? The TNC immediately announced that it was Gadhaif loyalists. I am curious about that because they were obviously well trained and well informed and if that he was working for Gadhaif still, he wouldn’t want him killed.
Maybe Yunes was the man he claimed to be and Gadhaif had created the rumor about him still being loyal and leaked it out intentionally to both kill the traitor and to shake up the opposition as well as the confidence in the TNC worldwide.
A third option is the US killed him, as is claimed in this story. There is much to think about in regards to Former Libyan Colonel Khalifa Haftar. He was a commander in the Libyan Army in the 80s during their war with Chad and a very close confident of Gadhaif since the late 60s. When captured in Chad during the war Gadhaif denied even knowing the man and refused to negotiate to get him & his men released. This created great hatred in Haftar towards Gadhaif. He approached his captors with an idea which would assist them in the war in exchange for the release of him and his troops.
Shortly after that he ended up living five miles from Langley, Virginia and working for the C.I.A. where he has been for the past two decades.
This is exactly the type of man we would want in power in Libya if we had any say, which we just may. Haftar is now working in a very high position with the TNC in the attempt to overthrow Gadhaif.
It is conceivable that Yunes’ intentions were sincere and he was legit, but didn’t play into the role the US wanted him to in the future and therefore it was decided to attempt to replace him with Haftar.
In conclusion, I do not know the answer and probably never will. I’m not convinced of anything and if anything I have said turns out to be the truth, it’s probably for the best. The ONLY thing I am saying with all certainty is that this stuff is VERY interesting to me.
--Desert Vet THE LIBYAN ‘TRANSITIONAL NATIONAL COUNCIL.” FROM THE “WHO IS WHO”, TO THE “WHO IS ASSASSINATING WHOM!” By nikos_retsos July 29th, 2011 19:37
The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC), General Fattah Yunes has been assassinated -along with his two military aids- under suspicious circumstances during a scheduled TNC consultation meeting! News reports suggest it was an Al Capone style assassination. He was called -or ordered- to a meeting, but the meeting was just a death trap set up to get rid of him! And the TNC claims to be clueless what happened -until its members probably concoct a plausible story to cover up the real reason of his demise. Fattah Yunes was a close Gadhafi collaborator, and his Interior Minister until the Libyan Spring erupted. He then quit as Gadhafi’s Interior Minister, and joined the Libyan rebellion. But many Libyans -and I myself- were suspicious that he was a Gadhafi Trojan Horse inside the rebels, rather than a genuine democrat seeking to free his fellow countrymen from Gadhafi’s despotic rule. He reportedly quit the Interior Ministry and joined the rebels bringing along 8.000 Libyan troops under his command, but he didn’t use those well trained units to integrate, train, and discipline the vast number of volunteer rebels into a fighting force. He seemed to be pathetic, and rumors floated that he was playing allegiance to the rebels while he was in contact with Muammar Gadhafi through third parties. His actual role would probably remain murky for some time to come. Who might wanted Fattah Yunis dead? If history is a measuring stick, the CIA tops the list. From Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, to Patris Lumumba in Congo, to Salvador Allende in Chile, to Jonas Savimbi mayhem in Angola, to wholesale dictators and death squads in Latin America, to Ngo Diem in Vietnam, to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and to thousands killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the CIA couldn’t tolerate a possible Gadhafi Trojan Horse in Libya. And since the CIA finances, supports, and keeps opposition figures of all of its global foes and antagonists on the shelve – just in case it needs to deploy them if the need unexpectedly arises, it was bound to support its own off-the shelve man to lead the Libyan rebel army: Former Libyan Colonel Khalifa Haftar, who spend 20 years in the U.S. living 5 miles from the CIA headquarters, and who had cooperated with the CIA on various efforts to destabilize the Gadhafi regime, is that CIA man in Libya. [The son of the former Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlevi, also lives close to CIA waiting to be dispatched to take over the reign in Iran - if the U.S. even succeed to overthrow the Islamic Regime there]. Colonel Haftar returned to Libya as soon as CIA agents were dispatched to Benghazi to evaluate the rebels, and upon arrival he declared in a cocky manner that he was the “Supreme Operational Commander” of the rebel forces, and that “Yunis was a nobody, or just a titular head.” And since the TNC has been an evolving amorphous political body with no real authority, whoever control the guns in the battlefield would actually end up being the new and unchallenged political figure in Libya. I believe the CIA has groomed Colonel Khalifa Haftar as the future strongman that will keep Libya firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence – like the Shah Reza Pahlevi did in Iran after the U.S. overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. I, however, believe the U.S. design for Libya will follow the Algeria model, in which General Huari Boumediene supported president Ahmed Ben Bella after Algeria’s liberation from its colonial ruler, France, and then pushed out Ahmed Ben Bella as ineffective leader later to become president himself. After the elimination of Fattah Yunis, Khalifa Haftar is poised to become with U.S. influence the undisputed Huari Boumediene of Libya. And he probably has a CIA blueprint in his pocket on how to dispose of the Libyan TNC if it fails to toe the U.S. line. Worse yet – if it happens, Khalifa Haftar may turn out to be more like another Shah of Iran – rather than another nationalist leader like Huari Boumediene! Libya -like Iran- has a lot of “black gold” that the U.S. cannot afford to lose! The Libyan assassinations, therefore, are not about who is going to control the sand dunes and the camels when the revolution is over, but who is going to control the oil!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor.
