"Not so the Libyan rebels. Members of their Transitional
National Council (TNC) in Benghazi last month detained their military leader,
General Abdel Fatah Younes, on suspicion of treachery, lured him away from his
bodyguards and murdered him. This week the head of the TNC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil,
sacked his whole government on the grounds that some were complicit in the
killing. He was apparently forced to do so in order to quell the rage of the
powerful Obeidi tribe to which Younes belonged.
A ludicrous aspect of the whole affair is that at the very
moment the rebel leaders are at each other's throats, they are being recognised
by country after country as the legitimate government of Libya. This week TNC
diplomats took over the Libyan embassies in London and Washington and are about
to do so in Ottawa. In a masterpiece of mistiming, Britain recognised the rebel
government on the day when some of its members were shooting their own
commander-in-chief and burning his body."
