Sabratha, Libya—“Girls were going to school under the Taliban! I know, because I was living in Kabul in 1999.” Youssef, 45, is as insistent on this untruth as this cheerful, equable man gets. A barrel-chested Libyan who spent ten years in Afghanistan under unclear circumstances, followed by eleven years in Qaddafi’s notorious Abu Saleem prison, he was released on February 16 and hasn’t strayed far from his modest Sabratha home since. He seems happy and relaxed, and invites me to stay with his family, even after I make it clear that I hate the Taliban. He is part of another side of Sabratha, a seaside town of about 50,000 where I spent five days in August.

Best known for its Roman ruins, Sabratha also boasts about fifteen men who fought in Afghanistan: The commander of the town’s rebel brigade, Omar Muktar al Madhoury, is one of them. When I meet him in his headquarters in Zintan in late July, before Sabratha was freed, he also admits to having fought in Algeria. Now, he says, he is a “peaceful Salafi,” or religious conservative, and turns away volunteers interested in jihad. But there is a rumor now in Sabratha that he intends to take some of the Sabratha fighters to Algeria soon, to support a planned September uprising inspired by the Arab Spring.