One militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.

As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Muammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime leader's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.

The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes - the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.

"I am fed up," said Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar, the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change, al-Akhdar said.

The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions.

In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi's family assets returned to Libya by European countries have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.

"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.

Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes", after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.

At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them, but he insisted that stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.

The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.

Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances.

The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about one-tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.

"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."