It's a little too green in Bani Walid

Fighters loyal to Gaddafi took control of a town south-east of Tripoli yesterday, flying their green flags in defiance of Libya's fragile new government. The fightback by Gaddafi supporters defeated in the civil war, though unlikely to spread elsewhere, added to the problems besetting a government which in the past week has been reeling from one crisis to another. This has only happened because the new government doesn't have a law banning certain totalitarian symbols. Germany has a ban on swastikas used outside of an appropriate historical or religious context, and some countries in the former Eastern Bloc have laws banning not only the swastika but also symbols of their communist past. However, the National Transitional Council needs to ban the green flags that are a hallmark of Gaddafi's reign of terror. This new flare-up cannot be tolerated, but neither can the slow speed of reform.