Picking leaders for Libya's NTC top military post entails merit and not geography or ethnicity, propounds Gamal Nkrumah The National Transitional Council's (NTC) rumour mill of Libyan political intrigue is in overdrive. There is much talk that whoever takes over the position held by Abdel-Fattah Younis is transitory and will be obliged to relinquish his post in due course. The tribal elders and leaders of the Werfella people of the deceased Younis insist on a fellow Werfella tribesman taking up his position, succeeding their fallen hero as commander-in-chief of the NTC's nascent army. This has sparked interest in the possible successor of Younis. The best candidate must also have a sound grasp of the military and security situation in the country as well as a good command of the politically correct lingo of the post-Gaddafi Libya and, it goes without saying appreciable political clout. The NTC appointed Suleiman Mahmoud Al-Obeidi to replace Younis as the new leader of the NTC's Liberation Army. The death of Younis has exposed sharp divisions within the NTC and how much needs to be changed if the NTC is to earn the trust of the Libyan people and prove that it is capable of governing the country. The violence against Younis and other potential dissenters within the NTC is a symptom of failing confidence in the capacity of the NTC to deliver improvements in the livelihoods of the Libyan people and to restore law and order and a sense of security. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Younis, the Chairman of the NTC Mustafa Abdel-Jalil dismissed the 14 member executive board of the NTC government and conducted criminal investigations. However, his efforts failed to satisfy leading members of the Warfella tribe, Libya's largest. The tribal leaders objected to what they described as the administrative slackness of the NTC. Now that the NTC leadership has a mandate to run large swathes of eastern and western Libya, they must show that they mean to effect real change. The assassination of Younis may smack of political point scoring. Under investigation is Mustafa Rubaa, a fighter loyal to the NTC entrusted with the responsibility of detaining Younis. Moreover, the chief spokesman for the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Moussa Ibrahim said that the assassination of Younis "represented proof that traitors of the NTC are not able to lead any sort of government." The tribal factor that Gaddafi warned about at the beginning of the Libyan uprising in February has come into full play. The assassination of Younis provided an early lesson to Abdel-Jalil and his closest aides and political associates within the NTC headquarters in Benghazi. Another suspect is Ahmed Bukhattalah who belongs to the Obeida Ibn Al-Jarrah Brigade of militant Islamists associated with Al-Qaeda according to Gaddafi supporters. Gaddafi had long insisted that the NTC is infiltrated by Al-Qaeda and that militant Islamist activists were implicated in the assassination of Younis. Meanwhile, forces loyal to Gaddafi are stalling off the NTC's Liberation Army's steady advance towards the outskirts of Tripoli. The Libyan opposition forces are already within 160km from the Libyan capital after capturing Bir Ghanem, a town to the southwest of Tripoli. After spearheading the assault on Bir Ghanem, the NTC's Liberation Army has taken a weird retrograde step pulling back its main force and focussing on consolidating its gains on the western front. Dwelling in time-honoured fashion on propaganda rather than facts, the Gaddafi regime and the NTC are trading insults, accusations and counter-accusations. The Gaddafi regime, for instance, this week claimed that it had recaptured Bir Ghanem but the opposition forces hotly denied the claim insisting that its forces were preparing to storm Tripoli -- a far-fetched boast as far as the Gaddafi diehards are concerned. Not to be outdone, the NTC claimed that Gaddafi's younger son Khamis was slaughtered in battle. This turned out to be yet another lie. The rhetorical drama reached a crescendo with a full page interview with Colonel Ahmed Bani of the NTC's Liberation Army published in the Pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat in which he purported that his forces are composed of Libyan nationals. Bani said that his troops are not "mercenaries like the cohorts of Gaddafi" who wreak havoc on unsuspecting and innocent civilians. The NTC persists in its assertion that Algeria and Chad are militarily backing the Gaddafi regime, an allegation denied by both the Algerian and Chadian governments. "I personally spoke with one of the captured Algerian mercenaries and he admitted that he crossed the Algerian border into Libya. Even though he denied that he was a member of the Algerian armed forces, we all know that Algeria keeps a close watch on all its border checkpoints and that it monitors movements across its vast frontiers," Bani added. Algeria, he contended had sent military advisers and technical personnel to Gaddafi. He also noted that other mercenaries hailed from the West African nations of Niger, Mali and Mauritania all of whom have ethnic ties with Libya and their kith and kin in the service of Gaddafi are among his loyal subjects. "We must therefore proceed with caution to avoid causing civilian casualties in the Gaddafi-held cities we have besieged," Bani concluded.
