In a dimly lit office in the heart of Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood, a man in his 40s with slicked back hair and intense eyes sat behind a desk and watched a television set playing an American action movie with Arabic subtitles. The door’s office slid open and another younger man walked in. “That Bazzi guy was shot!” he said excitedly. The movie-watching man’s gaze didn’t stray from the television as he answered back, “eh.”

“Who did it?” the second man exclaimed. Breaking the television’s hypnosis over him, the man glared at his curious neighbor.

He answered with one word, uttered with what appeared an intense disgust: “Dawaesh,” he said using the Arabic word for members of Daesh, or ISIS.