BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s rebel military struggled Saturday to explain an apparent rift within its highest ranks while acknowledging its soldiers’ role in a mistaken NATO bombing of rebel columns the night before.
The strike, which killed 13 rebels and injured seven, illustrated the hazards of conducting an aerial bombing campaign against a fluid and fast- moving front line.
Several cars and an ambulance also were incinerated, and opposition leaders said rebels may have been responsible for the bombing because they had fired their guns into the air in celebration.
“It was a terrible mistake, and we apologize, and we will not let it happen again,” said Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, vice president and spokesman of the opposition’s Transitional National Council.
The strike came as the rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Khadafy increasingly appear locked in stalemate, with rebels controlling most of the eastern part of the country but unable to oust Khadafy from power. The government has rejected a rebel- proposed truce that would essentially leave the country divided in half.
The rebel force has been criticized for its inexperience — many of the soldiers had never picked up a weapon before the uprising against Khadafy began — and it narrowly missed being routed in March when coalition planes halted Khadafy’s forces as they reached Benghazi, the rebel capital.
The opposition has said soldiers have started to receive better training and clearer leadership in the past week. But a day after the strike, the interim government sought to distance itself from a popular army commander it had earlier embraced.
Khalifa Haftar, a former army colonel who recently returned to Libya after living for many years in Falls Church, Va., was initially hailed by the Transitional National Council as a leader who could help discipline the new army and train its largely volunteer ranks.
But Saturday, Ghoga said Haftar had no leadership role in the army.
“We defined the military leadership before the arrival of Haftar from the United States,” he said, referring to the appointment of Abdul Fattah Younis as commander of the armed forces and Omar al-Hariri as the council’s senior defense official. “We told Mr. Haftar that if he wants, he can work within the structure that we have laid out.”
However, a source within the military who is close to Haftar said Haftar still commands the army and that Ghoga’s announcement had upset the public.
“Because of that, today Benghazi is upside-down,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“They are saying Ghoga has to go. The people, they want Haftar. No one can take him away from the army, or from our hearts.”
Haftar and Younis are known to have had tensions since Haftar arrived from the United States and was announced as the commanding officer under Younis.
The two men had come to their positions via very different paths. Younis, who was Khadafy’s interior minister and the commander of the Libyan special forces, broke ranks in February to join the rebels.
Haftar, who took part in the 1969 coup that brought Khadafy to power, was a hero in Libya’s war with neighboring Chad but changed sides in 1988 and went into exile as an activist against the regime.
Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman, said Haftar had swaggered into town “like Clint Eastwood,” with aspirations of leadership, but he downplayed Haftar’s importance to the army.
“There’s been quite a lot of people talking about ‘Haftar’s back, Haftar’s back,’ but most of them don’t know who Haftar is,” Gheriani said. “Haftar’s been out of the country for 25 years.”
Asked to explain Saturday’s announcement in light of the council’s earlier embrace of Haftar, he said: “This is the position of the council today. The situation is fluid. . . . The political viewpoints change frequently.”
The front line has in past days reportedly been more organized than in the past, with more experienced soldiers positioned farther forward and newer volunteers held back. Still, the line has seesawed for several days, centering on the town of Brega.
Ghoga said that by Saturday evening, Brega was in rebel hands.
