Smoke of Iraq War 'Drifting Over Lebanon'

Along one street, graffiti reads: "Liberation is coming."

"We thank the Americans," said Ibrahim Salih, a founder of the Committee to Support the Iraqi Resistance, which he described as a group that disseminates information.

Near his house, along a cinder-block wall, is more graffiti. "Glory and eternity for the martyrs of Fallujah," it reads.

"No one can repress us anymore," said Salih, 52, who was educated in France. "We are a power here in Tripoli."

Across the city's political and social landscape, the fighters from Iraq remain wild cards. Unlike Abu Haritha, Khudr and Abu Jad have, by their own accounts, gone back to quiet lives. "Someone who fights needs to be able to walk and run," said Khudr, the barber whose two legs were amputated below the knee. "I can't." Sympathizers with their cause wonder what is ahead, at a time when the fighters and their followers reflect and inspire a climate here that is growing ever more militant.

"It's already a phenomenon, whether they came from Iraq or look at Iraq as a symbol," said Maan Bashour, a Lebanese activist who others said helped organize the transit of fighters from Lebanon -- a claim he denies. "We're seeing the impact in some Arab countries, and we're waiting to see the impact in other Arab countries. They could be the elements of chaos in the area."

'It Depends on America'

Grievances against the United States are nothing new in a city like Tripoli. For a generation, activists across the spectrum have bitterly criticized U.S. policy. What has shifted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the perception of that policy. The critique is no longer about perceived double standards -- of excessive support for Israel, of backing Arab dictatorships. Today, it is more generalized, universal and uncompromising. Popular sentiment here and elsewhere holds that U.S. policy amounts to a war on Islam, and in the language of Abu Haritha and others, the conflict is framed as one between the faithful and infidels, justice and injustice.

"The targeting of Iraq can be considered the first step in targeting the entire Middle East to impose a new order in the region," said Fathi Yakan, a founder of the Islamic Association and head of an umbrella group known as the Islamic Action Forces.

In a waiting room decorated with religious banners is a magazine that celebrates the defiance of the Palestinian group Hamas against attempts to isolate it. "We starve, but we don't kneel," says one passage. At the entrance is a poster marking the anniversary of Israel's assassination in 2004 of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas. "Together we resist," it reads. On a street outside, a poster announces a forum titled, "The global campaign to resist aggression on the Muslim nation."

"Tripoli resembles Fallujah, in everything," said Yakan, 73.

Fighters like Abu Haritha and activists like Shaaban and Yakan speak in almost mythical tones about what they call the resistance in Iraq. In nearly every conversation, they make the assertion that the United States has, at this point, lost the war.

"We already consider it a success. It has already led to the failure of the American project in Iraq," Yakan said with a shrug that suggested the obvious. "I think the Americans realize that, and they are looking for an exit to wash their hands of it."