He told his family he was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Instead, the second-year college student packed a vinyl travel bag and left home in Saudi Arabia for a trip that would take him on a smuggling route across the Syrian border and into the heart of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
So began the underground life of safe houses, aliases and hit-and-run attacks of another Islamic foot soldier recruited to battle the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies.
The story — recounted to The Associated Press in a rare interview with a captured foreign fighter — is not one of extraordinary daring or singular cunning. It's about one of the anonymous trigger-pullers in alleys or roadsides — in this case, an ordinary history major who became a rank-and-file gunslinger for insurgent commanders.
The journey of Mohammed Abdullah al-Obeid offers a window into how extremist networks manage to replenish their ranks by combing campuses, markets and mosques for those willing to take up arms in Iraq — and now increasingly in Afghanistan. Even with violence in Iraq tailing off, authorities are concerned that the same clandestine channels used to bring the young al-Obeid into Iraq in late 2005 are still in operation and can be expanded at any time. |