Libya rebels dissolve cabinet after commander’s death

Libyan rebels dissolved their executive committee after "shortcomings" by some members in the handling of the shooting death of military chief Abdel Fattah Younes, 12 days ago, a rebel spokesman said on Monday.

A spokesman for the rebels' governing National Transitional Council (NTC) told Al Jazeera television that rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril, who was head of the committee, had been asked to form a new executive body of ministers, Reuter's reported.

Rebel army head Abdel Fattah Younes was assassinated on July 28 after he was called back from the front to testify before a judicial committee investigating the military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi. Rebels said Younes was killed by a militia. Some blamed it on rumors of ongoing connections to the regime, others on Islamists.  Younes's death was seen by western supporters as a setback for the rebels and divisions among their ranks.

Al Jazeera reported The New York Times acquired a 70-page plan for a post-Gaddafi Libya. The document was written by the rebel National Transitional Council in Benghazi with significant British help, the Times reported.

"It contains plans to immediately enlist 5,000 members of the current police force to guard Tripoli after Gaddafi is killed or deposed, claims that more than 3,000 members of the regime army belong to clandestine rebel groups, and suggests that rebels might be willing to negotiate with Gaddafi's sons."

The document was reportedly meant to draw on lessons from failures in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and it states that it is highly unlikely rebel forces will seize Tripoli. More likely is that soldiers will defect en masse, or residents will rise up against Gaddafi, it says, according to Al Jazeera.

The rebel government said on Saturday it delivered US $10 million to the Nafusa Mountains in the west of the country, where militia fighters are trying to edge closer to Tripoli. Nafusa rebels have not seen wages paid since January, according to the NTC and there is said to be shortages of basic items, the AFP reported.

Meanwhile, rebels continue to inch forward in the west. The newly captured town of Bir al-Ghanam provides a strategic location in western Libya 85km from Tripoli. But Gaddafi forces launched an offensive to regain control of the town. If held sources say the town could help cut off a major supply route to Tripoli

"Bir Ghanem is such a strategic town that when they take that town they [will] have access to the main highway that reaches to Az Zawiyah, which is just west of Tripoli," Al Jazeera reported.