U.S., Iraqi officials say bombers recruited in gulf region, N. Africa
Associated Press. Published July 1, 2005
BAGHDAD -- The vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq are thought to be foreigners--mostly Saudis and other Persian Gulf Arabs--and the trend has become more pronounced this year with North Africans also streaming in to carry out deadly missions, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
The bombers are recruited from Sunni communities, smuggled into Iraq from Syria after receiving religious indoctrination and then quickly bundled into cars or strapped with explosive vests and sent to their deaths, the officials said. The young men are not so much fighters as human bombs, a small but deadly component of the Iraqi insurgency.
"The foreign fighters are the ones that most often are behind the wheel of suicide car bombs, or most often behind any suicide situation," said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the Multinational Force in Iraq.
Officials have long believed that non-Iraqis infiltrating the country through its porous borders with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia were behind most suicide missions, and the wave of bloody strikes in recent months has confirmed that thinking...
...Progress against infiltration is crucial in reducing the number of suicide bombings. Authorities have found little evidence that Iraqis have been behind the near-daily stream of such attacks over the past six months, U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Since 2003, less than 10 percent of more than 500 suicide attacks have been carried out by Iraqis, according to one defense official. So far this year, there have been at least 213 suicide attacks--172 by vehicle and 41 by bombers on foot--according to an Associated Press count.
Another U.S. official said American authorities believe Iraqis are beginning to look at suicide bombers as a liability. "Just as there is no shortage of people willing to do this, nor is there any shortage of targets, and they tend to be police," the official said.
The trend does not mean Iraqis are not part of the bloody insurgency: On the contrary, Iraqi insurgents are thought to be responsible for much of the violence and fighting in the country, although most of those are non-suicide attacks.
"I still think 80 percent of the insurgency, the day-to-day activity, is Iraqi--the roadside bombings, mortars, direct weapons fire, rifle fire, automatic-weapons fire," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert with the Congressional Research Service, which advises U.S. lawmakers.
But he added: "The foreign fighters attract the headlines with the suicide bombings, no question."
The key role of foreign fighters in suicide attacks is one reason many senior military officials, including the top U.S. general in the Middle East, tend to view the war in Iraq as slowly developing into an international struggle against militant Islam.
The military brass say Islamic extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda in Iraq organization are determined to start a civil war by attacking Iraqi security forces and members of the country's Shiite majority.
"It's not about one man. It's about his network," the top general in the region, U.S. Gen. John Abizaid, said recently. "His network exists inside Iraq. It's connected to Al Qaeda. It's got facilitation nodes in Syria. It brings foreign fighters in from Saudi Arabia and from North Africa..."
...Overall, the number of foreign fighters coming into the country seems to be increasing from what it was six months ago, Abizaid said. "There's probably about 1,000 foreign fighters and about somewhere less than 10,000 committed insurgents in the field," he said...
...In interviews while visiting prisons, militant groups and government officials, he was told that there were so many suicide bombers coming out of the Persian Gulf states that the loose networks that deploy them--many run through mosques--had to turn away potential attackers.
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In another version of the story...
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The majority of suicide attackers in Iraq are thought to be foreigners -- mostly Saudis and other Gulf Arabs -- and the trend has become more pronounced, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
"The foreign fighters are the ones that most often are behind the wheel of suicide car bombs, or most often behind any suicide situation," said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the Multinational Force in Iraq.
Since 2003, less than 10 percent of more than 500 suicide attacks have been carried out by Iraqis, according to one defense official.
So far this year, there have been at least 213 suicide attacks -- 172 by vehicle and 41 by bombers on foot -- according to an Associated Press count.
Authorities have found little evidence that Iraqis have been behind the near-daily stream of suicide attacks during the past six months, U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.
There have been a few exceptions.
On Jan. 30, Election Day in Iraq, an Iraqi boy, wearing a suicide vest, attacked a polling station. An attack on a U.S. military mess hall in the northern city of Mosul in December that killed 22 also was believed to have been carried out by an Iraqi, as was a June 11 attack on the Baghdad headquarters of the Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade..."
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Just a note here, the version in my paper this morning read, "On election day Jan. 30, a mentally handicapped Iraqi boy, wearing a suicide vest, attacked a polling station."
I guess the AP has had a partial recovery from their coma and realized what many of us have been saying for some time now.
Oh yes, a question...isn't this why we're fighting the global war on terror? Add to this the new Iranian president's "wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world" comment, is the picture getting any clearer? Perhaps some day we won't have to read about mentally ill children being turned into bombs?
Steve |
