Basra, 8 Dec. (AKI) - Four Arab citizens have been given life sentences by Iraq's Central Penal Court after being found guilty of terrorism offences and being members of a cell linked to al-Qaeda. The Iraqi Justice Minister issued a statement announcing the sentences, which it said were given to "terrorists" from Jordan, Syria and Algeria who were members of al-Qaeda's Iraq network, led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The statement says "the foreign terrorists illegally infiltrated Iraq and committed various crimes, including murder, terror acts and possession of illegal weapons."The news comes on the eve of the start of a trial of four Saudis accused of the illegal possession of weapons in the town of al-Zubayr, to the south of Basra.
It had been thought that many of the insurgents fighting in Iraq were foreigners. However, a report published in September by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) stated that even though "no one knows the number of active and part-time insurgents, paid agents and sympathisers," they estimate there to be around 30,000 insurgents in Iraq, of whom only 3,000 are foreign fighters.
The report went on to say that the biggest number of foreign fighters are thought to come from Algeria (600), Syria (550), Yemen (500) and Sudan (450). They believe 350 or around 12 percent of the foreign insurgents are Saudi nationals.
| Saudis being more inclined to stand around looking princely while others do the work |