Nearly a fortnight after a handful of lawyers and activists took their first faltering stand, a renewed sense of determination gripped Libya's uprising.
Presenting the world with a clear alternative to Col Muammar Gaddafi, those at the forefront of the insurrection against his 41-year-rule formed a National Libyan Council. The move was a gamble, for by setting up a headquarters in Benghazi they could alienate other parts of the country suspicious of the east.
But it has given the anti-Gaddafi regime a face to rally around in the form of Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former justice minister whose defection a week ago made him one of the uprising's champions.
n eastern Libya, the creation of something approximating a formal leadership has been almost universally welcomed in the hope that it will give shape to a revolution that has so far been rudderless and frequently chaotic.
Benghazi, where Col Gaddafi's forces were finally defeated on Feb 20 after days of bloodshed that left hundreds dead, has witnessed a carnival perhaps unprecedented in the port city's long history.