Nato continues blitz as rebels squabble
Posted by seumasach on August 9, 2011
9th August, 2011
Bombs continued to fall on Tripoli today as Nato continued its mission to oust Colonel Muammar Gadaffi despite its member states’ economic crises and confusion over the leadership of its National Transitional Council (NTC) allies.
Documents published by The Times on Monday suggest the rebels did not believe they were capable of taking the Libyan capital by force and were hoping for an internal uprising to oust the Libyan leader once air strikes reached an “unbearable” level.
NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil sacked the entire rebel cabinet on Monday night and asked his prime minister Mahmud Jibril to appoint a new one.
Council member Fathi Turbel said: “It was clear the cabinet needed to be reshuffled after military, security and media incompetence.”
Reports in Libya have suggested that there are divisions between the bulk of the NTC, which is largely made up of Libyan-based rebels and defectors from the Gadaffi government, and its executive which is mainly made up of former exiles.
Divisions in the council have been increasingly obvious since the assassination of rebel military chief General Abdel Fattah Younis in July while he was being taken to Benghazi for interrogation.
It has since emerged that Gen Younis’s arrest warrant was signed by NTC executive member Ali Essawy.
Since then fighting has broken out between rebel forces in Benghazi, the rebel capital, and violent protests by members of Gen Younis’s tribe have plagued NTC-controlled areas.
In These New Times 
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