Libya Democracy Clashes With Fervor for Jihad

Portraits of people killed in the uprising hang in a mosque in Darnah, a town known as a cradle of Islamic jihad, but where many have put their faith in elections.

Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, a jihadi turned politician, says, “There is no reason for weapons now.”

But now Mr. Hasadi has refashioned himself as an eager politician running for local office, looking to the ballot box to promote his Islamic values. “There is no reason for weapons now,” he said. “Words are our weapons. Politics needs politics. It doesn’t need force.”

In the same town, Sufian bin Qumu leads a militia that flies the black flag of militant Islam. A former truck driver for Osama bin Laden who spent six years as a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Qumu says the Koran is the only constitution he knows. He insists that he will remain armed until Libya adopts a Taliban-style Islamic government.

“I lived in Kabul, in Afghanistan, when it was under Islamic law,” he said approvingly in a recent local radio broadcast that has been his only public statement. “If an Islamic state is established here, I will join it.”

In an unfolding contest here over the future of the Islamist movement, Mr. Hasadi’s vision of peaceful change appears ascendant. For the West, his success may represent the greatest promise of the Arab Spring, that political participation could neutralize the militant strand of Islam that has called thousands to fight and die in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

That hope for democracy, however, is now imperiled by lawlessness in Libya, signs of sectarian war in Syria and military rule in Egypt. In Egypt, especially, the generals’ attempts to thwart an Islamist electoral victory could validate militant arguments about the futility of democratic reform.

Some in the West fear militants will find new staging grounds. In Darnah, which the United States Army says sent more jihadis to fight the United States in Iraq than any other town its size, Mr. Qumu and other militants still command a following, according to local officials and residents. Many blame Islamist militants for a spate of violent crimes, including the bombing of Mr. Hasadi’s empty Mercedes-Benz.

But many former jihadis here say they have put their faith in elections, starting with a vote for a Libyan national assembly expected next month.

“We want our politics to be like Israel,” said Mosab Benkamaial, 25, referring to the Jewish state’s melding of religious identity and electoral democracy. Mr. Benkamaial, who was captured by United States troops in Baghdad, now runs Darnah’s most popular restaurant, a kebab grill called Popeye’s.

Other prominent Libyans who once traveled abroad to fight in the name of Islam are also moving in the same direction. Abdel Hakim Belhaj led an Islamist insurgency in Libya, fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and later joined the Taliban before the C.I.A. captured him in Malaysia. The leader of the Tripoli Military Council, he has founded a political party modeled after Turkey’s loosely Islamic governing party.

“We are not an Islamist party,” said Anas al-Sharif, a former spokesman for the Islamist insurgency.

There are, however, still signs of division among Darnah’s jihadis. During last year’s rebellion, graffiti proclaimed “No to Al Qaeda.” Now the word “no” is blacked out. A few weeks ago, after Mr. Hasadi spoke at a mosque about the coming elections, militants blew up his car.

“For sure we have extremists,” said Mohamed el-Mesori, 52, who leads the local governing council. “There are people who are not with Hasadi because he speaks about democracy and elections,” he said, adding: “Sufian bin Qumu is not yet convinced of that, but we think he is open. People are trying to show him that this is the only way to convince people of your ideas.”

Surrounded by mountains pocked with deep caves, Darnah has been a natural center of guerrilla resistance since the Ottoman Empire. In the 1980s, some of its young men joined the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, then returned in the 1990s to form the core of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which for a brief time threatened Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi.

After its defeat, many, including Mr. Qumu and Mr. Hasadi, fled to Afghanistan.