'Myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters: only 4-10% of insurgents foreign

[Mugsy]

From the "I hate to say 'I told ya so' file...

The 'myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters
Report by US think tank says only '4 to 10' percent of insurgents are foreigners.

By Tom Regan | Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com
September 23, 2005 at 10:30 a.m

The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to http://www.csis.org/press/wf_2005_0919.pdf">a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS)

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The CSIS report says: "The vast majority of Saudi militants who have entered Iraq were not terrorist sympathizers before the war; and were radicalized almost exclusively by the coalition invasion."

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The Associated Press reports that CSIS believes most of the insurgents are not "Saddam Hussein loyalists" but members of Sunni Arab Iraqi tribes. They do not want to see Mr. Hussein return to power, but they are "wary of a Shiite-led government."

The Los Angeles Times reports that a greater concern is that 'skills' foreign fighters are learning in Iraq are being exported to their home countries. This is a particular concern for Europe, since early this year US intelligence reported that "Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose network is believed to extend far beyond Iraq, had dispatched teams of battle-hardened operatives to European capitals."

Iraq has become a superheated, real-world academy for lessons about weapons, urban combat and terrorist trade craft, said Thomas Sanderson of CSIS.

<snip>

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0923/dailyUpdate.html
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[maddezmom]

1. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1800443