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Iraq
Report: Most Foreign Fighters From Gulf
2007-05-24
KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Seventy percent of foreign insurgents arrested in Iraq came from Persian Gulf countries via Syria where they were provided with forged passports, an Iraqi intelligence officer said in a published report Wednesday.

"They, according to their own confessions, gather in mosques in the said (Gulf) states to travel to Syria using their passports, taking with them phone numbers of individuals waiting for them there," Brig. Gen. Rashid Fleih, the assistant undersecretary for intelligence of Iraq's Interior Ministry, told Kuwait's Al-Qabas daily in an interview.

Fleih did not provide more specific details about the alleged insurgents or which countries they came from. But he said once in Syria, the alleged insurgents were transported to the al-Qaim border area where they were provided with new passports after their old ones were destroyed, Fleih said in an interview from Baghdad. Once in Iraq, the insurgents were provided with forged Iraqi documentation and money to buy cars which they rig with booby traps, Fleih told the newspaper.
So maybe you can use a new division of Iraqi troops to seal the border?
He also accused Baathist followers of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of offering the foreign insurgents information about targets. "In brief, there is clear intelligence cooperation between them," Fleih told the newspaper.

Damascus denies the allegations and says it is doing all it can to stop them.
"Lies! All lies!"
Posted by:Steve White

#5  I still think the Saudi's are encouraging (or not stopping) their troublemakers to leave and die (as they did against the Soviets in Afghanistan). This will make the Kingdom more stable in the future. Not sure that's a good thing but I think that's what is happening.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2007-05-24 16:52  

#4  I expect the Saudis have thoroughly infiltrated the network by now.

Well, they *ARE* funding it.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2007-05-24 12:32  

#3  IIRC in 2005 3/4 of the foreign fighters were Saudi or Syrian, with significant numbers of Egyptians. In fact, half of the fighters came from one province in Saudi Arabia (the one where Wahabbism was invented)

The fact that these groups aren't mentioned anymore may mean that those veins have been played out. I hope this means that the number of foreign fighters is getting smaller.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2007-05-24 12:16  

#2  I expect the Saudis have thoroughly infiltrated the network by now. I hope we've done the same, because relying on the Sauds to act in a principled way or to put US interests near the top of their priority list requires an enormous and unjustified leap of faith.

If we haven't put our people inside, then the CIA is more clueless than Johnny Lynde. How hard could it be to figure out what phone #'s they're handing out in the mosques?
Posted by: Baba Tutu   2007-05-24 04:04  

#1  Back when I was seeing the tallies the greatest number of nitwits (caught/killed) were coming from places other than the Gulf (uh, other Arab places).

I of course don't know all we've done/are doing about the Syrian problem. I of course don't know all we've done/are doing about the Iran problem (come on, I'm not ABC News). However, I know the outcomes on the ground in Iraq for the last 2.5 years (at least). Unacceptable.

Posted by: Verlaine   2007-05-24 01:58  

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