By RAMI AL-SHAHEIBI |ARAB NEWS
BENGHAZI, Libya: An opposition special forces member accused fellow anti-government fighters on Friday of killing the movement’s military chief, pointing to a potentially major split in the ranks of the opposition battling Muammar Qaddafi.
An angry Mohammed Agoury told The Associated Press that he was present when a group of fighters from a faction known as the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade came to Abdel Fattah Younis’ operations room outside Benghazi before dawn on Wednesday and took him away with them for interrogation.
Agoury said he tried to accompany his commander, “but Younis trusted them and went alone.”
“Instead, they betrayed us and killed him,” he said.
The February 17 Martyrs Brigade is a group made up of hundreds of civilians who took up arms to join the rebellion. Their fighters participate in the front-line battles with Qaddafi’s forces, but also act as a semi-official internal security force for the opposition. Some of its leadership comes from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LEFG) that waged a campaign of violence against Qaddafi’s regime in the 1990s.
Agoury said the brigade had an agenda against Younis, because he was previously Qaddafi’s interior minister and was involved in the crackdown that crushed the LIFG.
