Commanders who defected from Muammar Gaddafi’s armed forces in the heat of the civil uprising named a new chief yesterday, presenting the new Libyan authorities with a done-deal.

Some 150 officers and sub-officers, gathered in the eastern city of Al-Baida, unanimously approved the appointment of Khalifa Haftar and announced the re-activation of the army, which has yet to be officially reconstituted.

“Participants agreed to choose Major General Khalifa Belgacem Haftar as commander in chief of the national army due to his seniority, experience and capacity to command troops as well as the efforts he made to support the February 17 revolution,” said General Fraj Bunseira, head of Al-Baida’s military council.

The nomination is to be presented for approval to the head of the governing National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Gen. Bunseira told an audience of senior military officers.

The announcement was welcomed by applause but it was met with silence in the capital.

Abdelhakim Belhaj, the influential Islamist commander of Tripoli’s military council, said he had not heard of the news and declined to make any immediate comment.

The naming of the army chief comes amid a growing rift between members of the national army and the defence ministry which oversees scores of brigades, formed by civilians turned fighters during the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

Major General Haftar, who comes from the ranks of Benghazi’s military academy and trained in the former Soviet Union, defected from the Gaddafi regime in the 1990s after the Libya-Chad conflict and went to live in the US.

He returned home in March to join the military campaign to unseat Colonel Gaddafi.