Smoke of Iraq War 'Drifting Over Lebanon'

By any account, his journey was larger than life: Before the invasion, he said, he rode a bus across the Iraqi border with 50 other Arabs, hailing from places as far-flung as Morocco and Kuwait. They recited the Koran and joined in chants. "Oh mother, my religion is calling me to jihad and sacrifice," he recalled saying. "Oh mother, don't cry if I fall."

"Those were beautiful hours," he said.

In Baghdad, Deeb and others stayed in a school. Fired with zeal, they poured out chemistry beakers, thinking they were liquor. From there, he went to Basra, fighting until that city fell to British forces. Of 300 Arab fighters, only he and eight others survived a bombing of their base. With a Lebanese friend, he then walked and hitchhiked for more than a week across southern Iraq, along the Tigris, finally arriving in Baghdad. He said he went north, joining other Arab fighters in Anbar province in western Iraq.

After a mission, he said, he lost his guide. Abandoned, he decided to return to Lebanon, walking to the Syrian border. Back home in Tripoli, he arrived to find black banners in the street declaring he had died in Iraq. He tore them down with his own hands.

Deeb now bides his time in Tripoli, jobless and resentful. On his cellphone, he plays anthems celebrating the insurgency.

"We are the people of Fallujah," one song went. "Come to see how the people of Fallujah fight."

"It's an open battle," he said. "As long as the Americans are in the Middle East, no one will have any rest."

Deeb lit another cigarette. He folded his arms across his chest, his calloused hands bearing the scars of shrapnel wounds suffered in the Lebanese civil war.

"If there's an opportunity, I will return," he said. "This time, I won't come back without victory or martyrdom."