THE murder of General Abdel Fatah Younes in still largely unexplained circumstances is the worst possible news for those Western governments, such as Britain's and America's, that have just taken the step of recognising the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people. It appears that General Younes, the commander of the rebel forces and a former interior minister in the regime of Muammar Qaddafi who defected in February, was recalled to Benghazi from the eastern front near the oil town of Brega to answer charges of negotiating secretly with Tripoli. Three hours after his supposed arrival in Benghazi, the head of the TNC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, another former minister, announced his death and that of two other officers at the hands of an armed gang, at least one of whose members had been arrested. As news of the killing spread, forces loyal to General Younes, mainly from his Obeidi tribe, began heading for Benghazi, while other fellow tribesman began spraying the hotel from where Mr Jalil had made the announcement with automatic rifle fire.

General Younes had been from the moment of his defection an ambiguous figure for many in the rebel camp who doubted whether he had really burnt his bridges with his old ministerial chums and the Qaddafi family. In April, the Colonel's daughter, Aisha, suggested in a television interview that one member of the TNC's ruling council was still loyal to her father. She refused to rule out speculation that this was General Younes. There was also tension between General Younes and Khalifa Haftar, a former army officer who also claimed to be the leader of the rebel military forces, which had contributed to the dysfunctionality of the military effort in the east.

The death of General Younes raises a number of tricky questions for the TNC and its supporters in the international community. 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? Mr Jalil recently raised the possibility that Colonel Qaddafi might be allowed to remain in Libya, though not in power, as part of a peace deal, only to be quickly contradicted by some of his colleagues. To what extent was the murder of General Younes motivated by tribal rivalries? The TNC has determinedly stressed that its goal of a democratic Libya ruled by law transcended tribal bickering. But as the prospect of negotiated settlement looms larger and with it the way in which the country's resources, especially its oil, may be divvied up, the potential for tribal factionalism to rear its head is there. More immediately, with the onset of Ramadan next week, what does the removal of General Younes from the scene mean for the attempt to break the military stalemate in the east? Should the forces there begin to splinter, the outlook could quickly change for the worse.



So far, there are more questions than answers, but General Younes's death is an ominous precedent.