Libyan rebels said they were probing the assassination of their military commander, as NATO warplanes raided TV transmitters belonging to embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi regime.

Libyan rebels said they were probing the assassination of their military commander, as NATO warplanes raided TV transmitters belonging to embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi regime.

"The NTC has appointed an investigative committee and we will publish all the facts of this investigation," Ali Tarhuni, who handles economic affairs for the rebel National Transitional Council, said on Saturday.

General Abdel Fatah Yunis was shot dead on Friday, along with his two aids. He was summoned by the council for investigation in a military operation, but was killed before he arrived for questioning.
Yunis was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February. He was also part of the group that helped bring Col Gaddafi to power in 1969.

Tarhuni said Yunis's bullet-ridden and partly burned body was found early on Friday on Benghazi's outskirts, but that the NTC had received news of his death late on Thursday when the head of a militia behind the crime confessed.
"The head of the militia is imprisoned now," Tarhuni said, adding that some of the perpetrators, who he said belonged to Jirah Ibn al-Obeidi brigade, were yet to be incarcerated, and the motive for the killing remained unclear.
"We don't know who they work for," he said.

GADDAFI REGIME: YUNIS KILLED BY QAEDA
For its part, Gaddafi’s regime sought to pin the blame of the assassination on al-Qaeda, with government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said: “By this act, Al-Qaeda wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region" of eastern Libya controlled by the rebels.

"The other members of the National Transitional Council knew about it but could not react because they are terrified of Al-Qaeda," he Ibrahim said.

NATO STRIKES TV
Meanwhile, NATO said early Saturday in a statement that its warplanes had launched precision strikes on three Libyan television transmitters to silence "terror broadcasts" by the Gaddafi regime.

"Our intervention was necessary as TV was being used as an integral component of the regime apparatus designed to systematically oppress and threaten civilians and to incite attacks against them," the statement quoted alliance spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie as saying.