A picture dated March 13, 2011 shows General Abdel Fattah Yunis, commander of Libya's rebel forces, holding a press conference at a hotel in Benghazi.
The weeping, gunfire and passionate speeches at the funeral for Libya's biggest rebel military leader could not drown out the angry whispers about how their beloved commander had suffered a betrayal from within rebel ranks.
Many of the men who hunched around the grave of General Abdel-Fattah Younis, praying and tossing handfuls of dirt on the wreaths and plastic bouquets, spoke about taking revenge for the torture and killing of their leader.
"We know who did this," shouted Fauzi Al-Zairi, 61, a lawyer and prominent member of the general's Obeidat tribe. "We will find them."
Gunmen loyal to the general say they have not lost faith in the rebel chief, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, but they expressed mistrust with his commanders. Their main suspect is Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, whom they accuse of bribing and infiltrating rebel battalions, but they also named several prominent figures in the rebel movement who may have seen the charismatic general as a rival.
No sign of reprisal killings emerged immediately, but the fallout from Gen. Younis's death continues to break down the rebels' unity at a time when they can least afford infighting. The hardest part of the war lies in the coming weeks or months, as resistance fighters grind slowly toward Tripoli.
In an apparent effort to contain the crisis, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni told reporters that an obscure militia group was responsible for the death, and said its leader had confessed. Mr. Tarhouni said the militia had been entrusted with a delicate job, arresting the general from his command post and returning him to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to face questions from a judicial committee. The militiamen disobeyed orders, he said, executed him in custody.
"Everything is under control," Mr. Tarhouni said. "This is just a rough stage we are going through."
Those explanations have not satisfied the general's loyal followers, however. Gen. Younis defected to the rebel side within days of the first revolt in February, and over the following months he built a powerful militia from the ranks of Special Forces units he previous commanded, plus volunteers from his powerful Obeidat tribe.
Saleh Gaouda, a friend of the general, said those forces will demand a quick and rigorous investigation. "We want to know the whole truth," Mr. Gaouda said. "We still have tribes here, and weapons are everywhere, so it's a dangerous situation."
Relatives said the general had his throat slit and suffered gunshot wounds. His burned body was discovered Friday morning near the city outskirts in a neighbourhood known as Safsafa, alongside the corpses of two aides. All of them showed signs of torture.
The general's son, Ashraf, wept as his father was lowered into the orange dirt.
"We want the green flag back!" he screamed. It was a highly unusual expression of nostalgia for the Gadhafi regime; his own father's coffin was draped in the tricolour rebel flag, and nobody in eastern Libya now dares to show any allegiance to the regime's green flag.
One of his son's friends started listing rebel leaders he blamed for the death - Jalal al-Dogheily, the rebel defence minister; Fawzi Bukatif, commander of the so-called February 17 Martyrs' Brigade, a rebel militia - but he was interrupted by one of his fellow tribesmen who saw a journalist for The Globe and Mail writing down the names and forced the reporter to tear out the page from his notebook. Bulqasim Obeidi, 49, grabbed the scrap of paper and ripped it into tiny pieces, scattering them on the wind, declaring: "These are rumours. These are dangerous things."
Others directed their rage at Jomaa al-Jazwi, a former high court judge in Benghazi who continues to serve as a judge for the rebels.
The general's tribesmen say that Mr. al-Jazwi signed the summons giving authority to the militia that took Gen. Younis away on Thursday morning. Mr. Gaouda said the judge was now under protective custody.
None of the rebel officials named by the angry mourners could be reached for comment, and some of the allegations against them seemed based on raw emotion and not entirely on facts.
Still, some members of the crowd argued that suspicion fell on the rebel council, which announced the deaths before the discovery of the bodies. Others questioned why, if the killing had been a plot orchestrated by Col. Gadhafi, would the assassins have bothered to torture the general.
"The big problem is that we still don't know what happened," said Khalid Obeidi, 33, an electrical engineer and cousin of the general.