Hate Club

Lased Ben Heni craved a glorious death. On a visit to the seedy apartment of a Tunisian friend, Essid Sami Ben Khemais, in a Milan suburb last March, the intense 32-year-old Libyan chafed at the strictures imposed on martyrdom by al-Qaeda.

Any dramatic action against "the enemies of God," he complained, required authorization of "Sheik Ali Abdullah" — an alias, according to the Italian antiterrorism officials bugging the conversation, for bin Laden himself.

"Theres too much planning. Im only asking to be allowed to fight them, so I wont have to respond to...