Destination Martyrdom

Darnah's militants do have one other thing in common: an almost obsessive devotion to their town's place in history. Greek and Roman ruins, the detritus of occupations in the ancient past, dot the wheat and barley fields along Libya's coastal plain. The United States left its own lasting mark on the town's collective memory during the Barbary Wars of the early 1800s. Darnah became a key battlefield in America's first overseas military expedition, when 500 American Marines and local mercenaries marched across the desert from Egypt to assault the town. (The ensuing Battle of Darnah inspired the "shores of Tripoli" line in the current Marine Hymn.)

But it was another country a century later that seared the ideal of armed resistance into the town's psyche. In 1911, Italy landed warships in Darnah's port, the beginning of a ruthless colonial presence that would last through the Mussolini era until the Axis powers were defeated in World War II. Local resistance to the occupation was strongest in the rocky hills near Darnah, but even there it was ultimately crushed. From its dust, a homegrown tradition of Islamic martyrdom emerged.

The local mythology is so pervasive that it guides even the town's most senior officials. On my second day in Darnah, I stopped by the office of Saddik Afdel, the co-chairman of the town's People's Committee—the Libyan equivalent of a mayor. A gentle sea breeze wafted in from an open window behind Afdel's desk. 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 told me. "Here in Darnah, not more than 10." I showed him the stack of documents, some of which include small photos of the fighters, and 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 I asked 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 told me. "We have to remember them."

II. To the Shores of Tripoli
most Americans today think of the Barbary Pirates only as a stray detail from a long-ago history exam. But to the Founding Fathers they were the scourge of the seas. The former North American colonies, newly liberated, needed the Mediterranean's shipping lanes to export their tobacco, sugar and other commodities to the Middle East. Having given up the protection of the British Empire's powerful fleet, American ships were falling victim to pirates from modern-day Morocco, Algeria and Libya. Kidnappings were frequent. Fair-skinned women were particularly prized captives, and were added to North African harems. The cycle of kidnappings and ransoms took a harsh toll on the young American nation.

The politicians argued about whether to confront or appease the enemy until President Thomas Jefferson finally ordered American warships into battle in 1801. Things began badly: the USS Philadelphia and its crew were captured; the frigate was anchored in Tripoli's harbor as a trophy, and Jefferson intensified American attacks. Stephen Decatur, in 1804 a relatively unknown U.S. naval officer, led a now legendary nighttime mission to assault the Philadelphia in the harbor, burning it into the sea. From the east, Gen. William Eaton marched his forces overland across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt, to Darnah in 1805. As described in Michael Oren's history "Power, Faith, and Fantasy," Eaton rode to the gate of Darnah's Old City and demanded the town's surrender. The local governor replied: "My head or yours." Eaton took the city.

Today there are relics and reminders of the battle all over town. One of the first things a visitor sees on the road into Darnah is a set of four giant yellow concrete numerals advertising the 1805 Resort. One popular eatery on the corniche is the Philadelphia Fast Food restaurant. Libyan schools teach the capture of the Philadelphia as a great national victory, although there was no independent nation of Libya at the time; it was a semiautonomous regency of the Ottoman Empire. Fathi Abd al-Moula, who teaches history to 10-year-olds in a small town outside Darnah, says he draws simple pictures of the Philadelphia for his classes. His students are too young to remember names like Eaton and Decatur, he explains, but they are old enough to see the battles as a source of national pride. "Libya was the first country to take on America," says Essam al-Hamal, who works at another Philadelphia Fast Food restaurant in Tripoli, where a mast said to be from the American ship is displayed to this day atop the Red Fortress. Libyans refer to the conflict as "the First Libyan-American War."