Smoke of Iraq War 'Drifting Over Lebanon'

Others at the time were similarly moved to act. Nadim Khudr, a 26-year-old barber, became so angry watching al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya television that he joined five neighbors from his hardscrabble village of Birayil, in the mountainous region of Akkar, above Tripoli. He was captured near Kirkuk, then lost both his legs when he stumbled on an unexploded cluster bomb at a U.S. prison camp in southern Iraq. Another man, who called himself Abu Jad, said he went to defend Arabs and Muslims, but he still shudders at memories of dogs eating corpses in the streets. He returned home soon after Baghdad fell.

Abu Haritha decided to stay in Iraq.

A 40-year-old father of seven, he was already a veteran, having honed his skills as a fighter in Lebanon's 15-year civil war. In Fallujah, his weapon of choice became the rocket-propelled grenade, and Abu Haritha's reputation spread in insurgent circles across the Sunni Triangle. He said other Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis joined him. They were far outnumbered by Iraqis, but each group brought its own talents; the Yemenis, he said, shaking his head in admiration, were the toughest.

A month after arriving in Fallujah, in the summer of 2003, Abu Haritha was wounded by shrapnel from a tank round in a two-hour battle with U.S. forces. He recuperated over a month. Weeks after that, he said, he was wounded again, in a battle that lasted into the night, when a bullet furrowed across his head in the Shuhada neighborhood. Four of his colleagues were killed that day. Abu Haritha decided to head home to get treatment, a three-day journey by car and foot to the Syrian border, most of the distance covered at dark.

On his return, he said, Lebanese authorities arrested him from a hospital bed and detained him for a month and 10 days.

"It was a favor to the Americans," he said.

'Planting the Seed of Hatred'

At a cafe in the old city of Tripoli last week, Bilal Shaaban, the leader of the Islamic Unity Movement, a Sunni group, reclined on a sofa. Overhead was a television showing al-Jazeera's coverage of Zarqawi's death. Outside the cafe was a city reflecting the very real currents of militancy, generated by the Iraq war, that are reshaping political and social life.

Shaaban ticked off what he called the successes of Islamic activists like him in Egypt, the Palestinian territories and now Somalia.

"In every place, why does the Islamic current reach its goals?" he asked. "Because it expresses the people's sentiments against the Americans. It's a reaction to American policy. They are planting the seed of hatred that is going to last generations."

Through history, Lebanon, with its relatively free environment and a weak state, has often emerged as a laboratory of forces elsewhere in the Middle East, and the government has expressed concern over the influence of the most radical strains of Sunni Muslim militancy, incubated in Iraq, that have gathered strength in places such as Akkar, the Bekaa Valley and some Palestinian refugee camps. Last year, two suspects arrested in Paris said they received explosives training in northern Lebanon. In December, Zarqawi said his followers in Lebanon had carried out an attack in which nine rockets were fired into northern Israel. The next month, Lebanese authorities said they detained 13 men suspected of connections to al-Qaeda, among them Lebanese, Syrians, a Saudi, a Jordanian and a Palestinian.

Men like Shaaban, of the Islamic Unity Movement, praise the insurgency in Iraq but deny any hand in subversion. At the same time, the growing reach of their groups in the poor neighborhoods of Tripoli -- through newspapers, radio stations, mosques and social welfare, the bread and butter of Islamic groups -- has gone far in transforming a predominantly Sunni city that was traditionally home to a vibrant mix of Arab nationalism and leftist and Islamic politics.

Even longtime residents are struck by the shift in social mores over the past few years: the proliferation of women's veils and men's beards, the flourishing of religion classes and the number of youths joining groups such as Shaaban's. On balconies, interspersed among flags for residents' favorite World Cup soccer teams, are black banners with religious inscriptions usually associated with holy war. In squares of Tripoli, particularly its most religious neighborhoods such as Abu Samra, civic art is often a stark representation of God's name.