Newsweek: The Martyr Factory: Libyan Town Became Pipeline For Suicide Bombers In Iraq

Even before he vanished, Abd Al-Salam Bin-Ali was an easy young man to miss. Pale, lanky and blind in one eye, the unobtrusive 20-year-old didn't leave much of an impression in Darnah, his hometown in eastern Libya. In school he had studied to become a veterinarian, but after graduation he couldn't find a job. "The economic situation was terrible," recalls his older brother, Abd al-Hamid. "He was looking for work every day." Sometimes Abd al-Salam would set up a folding table in Darnah's Old City and hawk cheap perfumes.

Unmarried, with few prospects, he still lived with his mother. At home, for distraction, he would sprawl in front of the family television and watch "Lion of the Desert," the 1981 epic of Libyan resistance fighters starring Anthony Quinn. Abd al-Salam had seen it over and over. As the war in Iraq dragged on, he also tuned in to Al-Jazeera. 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. He sometimes teased his mother that he wanted to run away to fight the Americans. Before she could protest too much, he always backed down. "No, no, no--don't worry, Mom," he would say with a laugh. "I'll get married instead." His older brother wasn't so confident. "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.

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