Six weeks after the revolution began, Benghazi, capital of free Libya, is descending into mistrust and fear. More stores have closed and most people no longer dare to give out their phone numbers. No one wants to say anything anymore beyond the revolution’s set phrases — nothing against the rebels and nothing against the government in Tripoli. One of many rumors says Gadhafi has spies within the National Council — why else would it be the youth who are now being cut down?

A cartoonist and an actor who parodied Gadhafi at a demonstration are now dead. Mohammed Nabbous, who ran the rebels’ television station, was shot by a sniper on March 19 in the middle of Benghazi, as he filmed the crash site where one of Gadhafi’s fighter jets was shot down. Fathi Turbel, the lawyer whose arrest touched off the revolution as young people demonstrated for his release, has disappeared.

No one dares to go out at night, as rounds of machine gun fire thunder through the empty streets. National Council members are no longer seen in public and they’re hard to reach for interviews. “There are death squads on both sides,” says Nasser Buisier, who fled to the US when he was 17, but has returned for the revolution. Buisier’s father is a former information minister, but was also a critic of Gadhafi, and his son doesn’t have much that’s positive to say about the new leadership. “Most of them never had to make sacrifices, they were part of the regime and I don’t believe they want elections,” Buisier says. He believes the National Council is on the verge of collapse and once that happens, he’d rather not be in Benghazi…

It is said that 8,000 people in Benghazi were government spies — the rebels found their names in files kept by the secret police. Armed young men roam the streets at night, arresting regime supporters, but private acts of revenge take place as well.