The first sign of the militants-in-exile appears just beyond the tiny Spanish village of Lubia, in a remote valley framed by pine-forested mountains. Down a dirt road through the woods, a Palestinian flag flaps in the breeze above a well -guarded compound. A half-dozen uniformed members of the Guardia Civil patrol in front of the entrance gate, swiftly surrounding a rental car that arrives there unannounced. The cops demand passports, sweep the vehicle's underbelly with a bomb detector. Then Ibrahim Abayat, the former commander of Bethlehem's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, ushers a pair of visitors past a dilapidated tennis court toward the crumbling hunting lodge he now calls home. "I always wanted to travel to Europe," says the erstwhile Palestinian guerrilla, a checkered kaffiyeh tossed around his neck. "But I never thought it would be like this."
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