criminal court over its decision to try Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late dictator, on home soil and under laws not yet published, rather than hand him over to The Hague. A court system has still to take shape, and the NTC left diplomats scratching their heads last week when it announced that a law on transitional justice had been passed, in secret, two months ago. "They [the NTC] are becoming defensive, they don't understand that their power comes from the people," said El-Gallal. Meanwhile, wages go unpaid, reconstruction is nonexistent, power cuts are common and much of the country is running out of money. Skirmishes, such as the battle between militias and the town of Beni Walid over its refusal to hand over war crimes suspects, simmer unchecked. And on Friday President Barack Obama's spokesman, Jim Carney, joined the chorus of critics, calling for the NTC to make its decisions "openly and transparently". Nervousness among western diplomats is well placed, for while the Arab Spring revolts in Bahrain, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia are home-grown, Nato was the midwife in Libya's revolution. Western recognition was the reason that the NTC, led by figures from the eastern town of Benghazi, are Libya's government, and alliance bombs were the reason it won the war. Should Libya lurch back into dictatorship, the blowback will be felt abroad, not least in London and Paris. And many Libyans now have the hardware to make their feelings felt. As one militiaman from Benghazi put it,