Abdul Fatah Younis
Abdul Fatah Younis Al-Obeidi (/ˈɑːbdəl fəˈtɑː ˈjuːnɪs/ ; Arabic: عبد الفتاح يونس, sometimes transliterated Fattah Younis or Fattah Younes or Fatah Younes; 1944 – 28 July 2011) was a senior Libyan military officer.[1] He held the rank of major general[2] and the post of minister of interior, but resigned on 22 February 2011 and defected to the rebel side in the First Libyan Civil War.[3] He was considered a key supporter of Muammar Gaddafi or even No. 2 in the Libyan government.[4]
Abdul Fatah Younis
1944
Jebel Akhdar, Libya
Kingdom of Libya (until 1969)
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (until 2011) National Transitional Council (2011)
In resigning, he urged that the Libyan Army should "join the people and respond to their legitimate demands".[3] In an interview with John Simpson on 25 February, he said he believed Gaddafi would fight to the death, or commit suicide.[4]
On 29 July 2011, Younis was reported dead by Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).[5] The NTC's oil minister Ali Tarhouni said Younis was killed by members of an anti-Gaddafi militia.[6]
Early life and career[edit]
Abdul Fattah was a member of the Obeidat tribe of the Banu Sulaym in Cyrenaica. The Obeidat are one of the most respected and powerful tribes in Libya. Younis was a key figure in the 1969 Libyan revolution led by Muammar Gaddafi, and he became a member of his inner circle.[7] He became minister for the public security, and attended a key meeting with the British ambassador to Egypt in 1992 where he apologised for Libya's involvement in the murder of Yvonne Fletcher, and offered to extradite her killers; he also admitted Libyan support of the IRA and offered compensation for their victims.
He had arrived in Benghazi commanding a special forces unit whose mission was to help relieve the besieged Katiba compound, which had sheltered the remaining loyalist forces in the city since 18 February, and which was undergoing almost continuous attack. He claimed to have ordered his soldiers not to shoot at protesters, and negotiated an arrangement whereby the loyalists were permitted to retreat from the building and the city.[4]
Following confirmation that Younis had indeed defected to the side of the rebels, he was declared commander-in-chief of its armed forces. In March, a military spokesperson announced that Khalifa Haftar had replaced Younis as commander of the military; however, the National Transitional Council denied this.[8] By April, Younis held the role of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, with Omar El-Hariri serving as Younis's Chief of Staff, while Haftar took the third most senior position as the commander of ground forces with the rank of lieutenant general.[9][10]