Many types of weapons went missing. The Tuareg mercenaries showed up in northern Mali sporting shiny new assault rifles for their insurgency. For the US, however, the focus has been on the SA-24 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles.

The SA-24s are portable and designed to target aircraft. This has made them a much desired commodity for the various militant groups in the region. Experts say that Libya had enough of these weapons to turn the northern half of Africa into one big no-fly zone.

The US scrambled, getting officials on the ground to try to find the weapons. But the short answer is they never did find them, and claims that it was “mostly secured” appear not to have been true.

And while the US will probably keep looking just for lack of anything better to do, State Department officials are now conceding that they “probably never will” know how many missiles went missing or where they ended up. At least until those weapons start being used against aircraft in the area.

Both heavy and light weapons were heard from the battle as ambulances rushed to the area and plumes of smoke rose from buildings after the 40 minute long fight.

An Interior Ministry official said the fighting was between militias from the city of Misrata and units from Zintan. Both groups were supported by the NATO mission and fought to oust Gadhafi and now use their weapons and relative autonomy to gain influence in Libya’s fledgling government.

Libya’s interim government has still not been able to assert control over the country and continuing unrest among the militias as well as growing distaste for the rule of the National Transitional Council is leading to concerns about a burgeoning civil war.

Aid groups recently suspended operations in Libya after finding evidence of widespread torture and human rights violations by both the NTC and the militias. Although the Obama administration tried to take credit for the regime change in Libya back when “democracy” was still believed to take place, but they refuse to take place for it now that chaos and crimes are taking place.

The militias, fighters for the National Transitional Council, claim the uprising was the doing of Gadhafi loyalists. But much of the clashes came as a result of the behavior of the militias: residents were upset with militia men breaking into homes, looting their possessions, abusing their families, and detaining and torturing scores for suspicion of being loyal to Gadhafi.

A number of international aid groups this week found evidence of widespread illegal detention and torture throughout Libya, adding to concern that the U.S. and NATO helped bring to power thugs on a par with the dictator they helped oust from power. Also recently, hundreds of angry Libyans violently stormed the transitional government’s headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday, looting office supplies as the country’s interim leader was trapped in the building.

The interim government has not yet gained control over the militias, who not only brutalize the civilian populations of their largely autonomous cities and towns, but also clash with each other. This has led to heightened concerns that Libya is teetering on the brink of civil war.

The Sahel is a belt which spans Northern Africa just south of the Libyan border. The UN report cautioned that now that the arms were outside Libya they could spread across the continent, and were likely to reach the Boko Haram faction in Nigeria as well as al-Qaeda’s auxiliary in the area, al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

AQIM has said as much several times, terming themselves one of the “main beneficiaries” of the NATO-backed civil war in Libya. The exact extent of the weapons looted from the Gadhafi regime’s arsenals are so vast they will likely never be fully accounted for.

The group, also known by its French name Medecins Sans Frontieres, said that since August they’ve seen evidence of including cigarette burns, heavy bruising, bone fractures, tissue burns from electric shocks, and renal failure from beatings.

“Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable,” MSF general director Christopher Stokes said in a statement. “Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”

The torture is widespread throughout the country, according to an investigation by Amnesty International, and has led to deaths in a number of cases.

“Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-Gaddafi fighters and loyalists,” Amnesty International said. ”The torture is being carried out by officially recognised military and security entities, as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework.”

More than 8,500 detainees, most of them accused of being loyal to former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadhafi, are being held by militia groups in about 60 different locations, according to U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. A long list of abuses and missteps have led some to say that Libya hasn’t changed much since the barbarism of Gadhafi.

U.S. and NATO leaders, who supported the current Libyan leadership and their various militias rise to power, claimed with the fall of Gadhafi that Libya had been liberated and would now embark on a course towards democracy and human rights. Since then, the interim government has called for sharia law, committed war crimes, violated basic human rights on a vast scale, and fought with tribal militias for control of the country in what might be the trappings of a civil war.

“We told him we want to keep the whole country peaceful and that national unity was a priority,” insisted WEC member Salah al-Maayuf. The WEC chased pro-NTC militia forces out of Bani Walid earlier this week, with officials at the time claiming they were “Gadhafi loyalists.”

The exact agenda of the WEC is unclear, but they apparently were the ones who raised the green flag of Gadhafi’s Libya over the town after the battles earlier this week. The Warfallah tribe represents a large portion of the town’s population, and apparently objected to the occupying militia.

Bani Walid was one of the last towns captured by the NTC, and it was overrun by militias in the wake of multiple NATO air strikes. The weeks of siege leading to the occupation of Bani Walid were particularly ugly, and it is unsurprising that the locals, represented by WEC, weren’t keen to continue hosting those who starved and bombed them.

Nominally under the control of the US and NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC), this new Libya is a nation awash in arms and grudges, the product of an ugly civil war and an international community that seems determined to throw its weight behind any interested party still alive on the ground.

In one instance, a knife fight at a market between two men from neighboring towns culminated in the massing of troops and the kidnapping and torture death of an uninvolved resident of one of the towns. His wife has just given birth the day before. Each side claims the other are pro-Gadhafi fighters.

Western diplomats are shrugging off the problems as a “country coming down off a victory high.” But Libyans don’t trust their new interim government and mass protests are breaking out against the brand-new regime.

The NTC is looking to placate the public with a few token resignations, but the issue goes well beyond the unpopularity of a few late-in-the-game defectors from the old regime. The protests against the Gadhafi regime began with the hope of a free country, and the realization that the NTC commandeered their revolution — possibly replacing one tyrant with another — is not something that can be easily tamped down.

British FM William Hague defended the move, saying Iran was enriching uranium “to 20 percent, for which there is no possible civilian explanation.” Hague, evidently, was unfamiliar with the US-built Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which operates on fuel cells using 20 percent enriched uranium to produce medical isotopes.

The latest embargo announcement came after a false announcement earlier this month, in which French FM Alain Juppe claimed a deal was reached and other EU officials denied it a day later.

The embargo could be potentially damaging to a number of EU nations’ economies, Greece in particular, as they will have to find alternative sources of oil. A likely source will be Libya, where Italian oil company Eni has been ratcheting up output. But given increasing instability in Libya, this may not prove a secure source.

The same reports say at least four people have been killed in the fighting, and dozens wounded. The green flag of the former regime is now flying over the town, one of the last few that fell to the NTC during the NATO-backed civil war.

It is unclear from the reports whether the fighters were simply supporters of the former regime, or if they were remnants of the old Libyan military. NTC forces in the town said they had been warning about the prospect of a fight for months.

When the fighting finally broke out, NTC forces in the town petitioned for reinforcements, but none came. They finally withdrew when they ran low on ammunition. Libyan Defense Minister Osama Jweli says he will not order a new attack on the town until it is determined that the forces are indeed Gadhafi remnants and not merely some rival militia. Militia from Misrata on the northern coast, known to be a particularly aggressive faction, were sent to the area to blockade the town in the meantime.

The protesters focused their anger on NTC officials with close ties to the former regime, including the NTC’s second-in-command Abdel Hafedh Ghoga, who announced his resignation today.

Ghoga was one of the late defectors from the Gadhafi regime to the NTC, and protesters condemned him as a political opportunist. Ghoga insisted he believed the resignation was for “the benefit of the nation.”

In addition to Ghoga’s ouster, NTC head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil announced that he is suspending all six delegates from Benghazi indefinitely over the protests. Though the suspensions appear to have been aimed at a show of faith to protesters who complained the delegates weren’t being transparent in their actions, it also leaves the seat of the anti-Gadhafi movement with no representation in the council, and delegates are already spinning their suspension as part of the problem.

Protests were also reported in the cities of Misrata and Tripoli, but Benghazi was clearly the real story, as it was not only the site of the largest protesters but also is one of the few cities generally seen to be under the NTC’s control.

Being the home of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion is likely to give Benghazi even more importance to the NTC than its enormous population would normally dictate, and the prospect of continued protests has many wondering if the government can possibly last.