No surprise, outside of the hotels where rebel leaders from the various NTC factions woo foreign dignitaries it’s the Islamists who control the situation on the ground running checkpoints and mopping up operations against Gaddafi’s forces.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) — A Libyan Jew who returned to the country in hopes of resurrecting its Jewish community after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi said on Monday that armed men had forced him from the Tripoli synagogue which he had hoped to restore.

David Gerbi, who at the age of 12 went into exile in Italy after the 1967 Six Day War spurred attacks on Tripoli Jews, told reporters he was trying to resume cleaning at the long-shuttered synagogue, only to find its door locked. Residents of the area then warned him to flee, he said.

“A man came and said, ‘You need to stop now. There are men coming with guns and you will be killed,'” said Gerbi, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned “I Love Libya” and holding a scroll inscribed with “Yahweh”, the Hebrew word for God.

A companion of Gerbi’s said four men armed with rifles had come to the synagogue as he tried to enter.

Gerbi, who cultivated ties with Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) during the uprising that toppled Gaddafi, said the incident would force the NTC to confront anti-Jewish prejudice following its pledges to build a democratic state that respects civil and human rights following decades of dictatorship.

“It needs to be clear if it’s a racist country or a free country,” he said. “The door has been closed again . . . it’s happened to so many generations. It’s a symbolic act.”

NTC spokesmen did respond immediately to calls seeking comment.