NEWSWEEK Cover: The Martyr Factory Why One Libyan Town Became a Pipeline For Suicide Bombers in Iraq

High Percentage of Foreign Fighters in Iraq Coming From Libya; Family Members Speak of Young Men With Bleak Lives, Searching for Redemption, Driven by Personal Factors, Not Global Ideology

NEW YORK, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Late last year American soldiers raided an insurgent headquarters in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar. Inside they found some papers with the letterhead "Mujahedin Shura Council." As they analyzed them, one thing struck the American investigators. Of the 606 militants cataloged in the Sinjar records, almost 19 percent had come to Iraq from Libya reports Newsweek Jerusalem Bureau Chief Kevin Peraino in the April 28 cover, "The Martyr Factory" (on newsstands Monday, April 21). Previous intelligence estimates had always held that the bulk of Iraq's foreign fighters come from Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the largest number of militants in the Sinjar records -- 244 of them -- were Saudi nationals. But in per capita terms, Libyans represented a much higher percentage. Perhaps the most startling detail: of 112 Libyan fighters named in the papers, an astoundingly large number -- 52 -- had come from a single small town of 50,000 people along the Mediterranean coast, called Darnah.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080420/NYSU002 )

Peraino traveled to Darnah earlier this month to try to figure out why it was contributing such a large portion of its young men to fight Americans in Iraq. Libya's economy is dominated by the oil and gas sector, which accounts for 90 percent of the country's revenues, but little of that wealth has ever trickled down to Libya's eastern province. Still, economic desperation alone doesn't fully explain the readiness of Darnah's young men to join the insurgents in Iraq. In their interviews with Newsweek, family members of the recruits from Darnah spoke of young men with bleak lives in search of redemption. Far from being universally motivated by one global ideology, the jihadist recruits often seem to have been driven by personal factors like psychological trauma, sibling rivalry and sexual longing, Peraino reports.

When Peraino visits the office of Saddik Afdel, the co-chairman of the town's People's Committee -- the Libyan equivalent of a mayor -- at first he denied that his town was sending a significant number of its young men to Iraq. "We don't know exactly the number," he tells Peraino. "Here in Darnah, not more than 10." When he's shown the stack of documents, some of which include small photos of the fighters, the chairman grew quiet. "We have no idea about that," he began, speaking through an interpreter. "They have no reason to go." He took a drag on his cigarette. "Look, this is a huge number," he eventually conceded. "If this number is true, it's very bad. It's bad for politics. But it's not bad for Muslims to do their duty. America said that this war is for freedom. And it's not. What we see on Al-Jazeera is not what we've been told by the Americans. I can't stop them from going. What we've been taught by the Qur'an is jihad." When Peraino asks about the town's history of rebellious militants, Afdel couldn't suppress a grin. "Those are the people who used to stand up and fight for their land," he says. "We have to remember them."

Peraino reports that one man, Abd al-Salam Bin-Ali, would watch Al-Jazeera as the war in Iraq dragged on. Nobody in the family had supported the American invasion, but Abd al-Salam was particularly affected by the bloody images he saw on the Arabic cable news channel. His brother says he was always talking about going to Iraq. "I was sure he would go," Abd al-Hamid recalls. "He was always talking about it." Abd al-Salam was also growing more devout. According to his brother, he spent most of his time at the mosque.

Then one day in late September 2006, Abd al-Salam simply disappeared. Shortly after, the telephone rang in Darnah. "I'm in Ramadi," the voice on the other end said. "I'm in Iraq." When the American soldiers raided the insurgent headquarters in Sinjar, one of the documents they found was perhaps an application form that Abd al-Salam had filled out on his way into the country, on the letterhead of the "Mujahedin Shura Council."

Shortly after Abd al-Salam's first call home, the young recruit called again from Ramadi to say he was on his way to an "operation." When the phone rang four days later, Abd al-Hamid didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the line. "Abd al-Salam is a martyr," the caller said.

(Read cover story at http://www.newsweek.com/.)

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Source: Newsweek

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2008-04-20 11:35:29 0339987 PRNEWSWIRE