[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.

[4] On 29 July 2011, Younis was reported dead by Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) in unclear circumstances.

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.

[10][11] On 24 July, Younis was reported by Al Bawaba to have been killed under "mysterious circumstances" on the first day of the Fourth Battle of Brega without specifying where they got such information.

[2] On 28 July, Younis was placed under arrest to face questioning in Benghazi, the de facto capital of Libya under the NTC, on suspicion that his family had contacts with the Gaddafi regime.

[13] The NTC said that he was summoned from the Brega front to answer questions regarding the misuse of military assets, but he never made it to the meeting.

[5] The Libyan government gave another version of the event, saying that Younis had been killed by the rebels because they thought he was a double agent.

According to military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, the judges who summoned Younis "did not have the authority do so" and "the defence minister had written a letter recalling the arrest warrant.

He said the two men were members of the 17 February Martyrs' Brigade and shouted that Younis was a traitor who killed their father in Derna, an eastern city.

[19] Gaddafi's government claimed that a rebel militant group aligned with al Qaeda killed Younis.