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Among Insurgents in Iraq, Few Foreigners Are Found
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
11/17/05 "Washington
Post" -- -- BAGHDAD -- Before 8,500 U.S. and
Iraqi soldiers methodically swept through Tall Afar two months ago
in the year's largest counterinsurgency offensive, commanders
described the northern city as a logistics hub for fighters,
including foreigners entering the country from Syria, 65 miles to
the west.
"They come across the border and use Tall Afar as a base to launch
attacks across northern Iraq," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the
Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which led the assault, said in
a briefing the day before it began.
When the air and ground operation wound down in mid-September,
nearly 200 insurgents had been killed and close to 1,000 detained,
the military said at the time. But interrogations and other analyses
carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was
from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored
Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June.
In a recent interview, McMaster maintained that foreigners were at
least partly responsible for the "climate of fear" that pervaded
Tall Afar before insurgents were driven out in September, citing
beheadings, suicide attacks and the abduction of young men to
conscript them as fighters.
"They trained indigenous terror cells and moved on somewhere else,"
he said.
The relative importance of the foreign component of Iraq's
two-year-old insurgency, estimated at between 4 and 10 percent of
all guerrillas, has been a matter of growing debate in military and
intelligence circles, U.S. and Iraqi officials and American
commanders said. Top U.S. military officials here have long
emphasized the influence of groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, an
insurgent network led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab Zarqawi. But
analysts say the focus on foreign elements is also an attempt to
undermine the legitimacy of the insurgency in the eyes of Iraqis, by
portraying it as terrorism foisted on the country by outsiders.
"Both Iraqis and coalition people often exaggerate the role of
foreign infiltrators and downplay the role of Iraqi resentment in
the insurgency," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon
official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, who is writing a book about the Iraqi insurgency.
"It makes the government's counterinsurgency efforts seem more
legitimate, and it links what's going on in Iraq to the war on
terrorism," he continued. "When people go out into battle, they
often characterize enemies in the most negative way possible.
Obviously there are all kinds of interacting political prejudices
they can bring out by blaming outsiders."
In weekly briefings for reporters in Baghdad, Maj. Gen Rick Lynch
regularly displays slides showing the face of Zarqawi, whose
organization has asserted responsibility for many high-profile
attacks. Mug shots of the Jordanian adorn virtually every barracks
and checkpoint in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
"We do believe that the major players are in Zarqawi's network, and
that's why we're focusing our operations against him," Lynch said in
a recent interview. "We believe that the most lethal piece of the
insurgency here is the terrorist and foreign fighters. And it's
because of the level of violence they're willing to go to to
accomplish their objective, which is to derail the democratic
process and discredit the Iraqi government."
U.S. and Iraqi officials have long maintained that a key to
stabilizing the country is preventing an alliance between foreign
fighters and Iraqis who might be amenable to pursuing politics
instead of violence to accomplish their goals. But as the country's
nascent political process has moved forward, with the election of a
transitional government and a constitutional referendum so far this
year and parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, there is
little evidence that the native insurgency has diminished.
In much of the country, including the north and center, commanders
say, the insurgency is led and populated almost entirely by Iraqis,
many of them former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, who do
not work closely with Zarqawi's group. Commanders there say Iraqi
insurgents are largely responsible for the roadside bomb attacks,
some involving armor-penetrating weapons, that have been responsible
for roughly half of the U.S. combat deaths in recent months.
"The foreign fighters' attacks tend to be more spectacular, but
local nationals, the Saddamists, the Iraqi rejectionists, are much
more problematic," said Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of the
Army's 42nd Infantry Division. His unit, which lost 59 soldiers
during its tour here, was based in the northern city of Tikrit,
Hussein's home town, before transferring the region to the 101st
Airborne Division this month.
Al Qaeda in Iraq maintains a presence in the region, he said, "but
they're not having much of an impact. Their message is not
resonating."
In Washington, a senior State Department official called foreign
fighters "an important element to the insurgency," but added that
"it would be a mistake to imagine that this isn't a largely an
Iraqi-based operation with critical support from foreign elements."
A Western diplomat in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition that he
not be named, said that foreign fighters remained the coalition's
"greatest concern" and that publicizing their role helps the Iraqi
government pressure nations whose citizens are traveling to Iraq to
fight.
"It may be overstated by some, but that does not mean they don't
exist," he said. "It is critical to get the help from countries
where these people come from, to stop the flow."
Cordesman said the relative influence of foreign and Iraqi elements
of the insurgency is difficult to measure because accurate numbers
are hard to come by. In a report published in September, he and a
co-author said they believed that 4 to 10 percent of the roughly
30,000 insurgents in Iraq are foreigners, many of them adherents of
a radical branch of Islam known as Salafism.
They said that interviews with intelligence officials and earlier
studies suggested that the largest contingents are Algerians (20
percent), Syrians (18 percent), Yemenis (17 percent), Sudanese (15
percent) and Egyptians (13 percent). They can be hard to distinguish
from the general population, the report said, because cell leaders
have encouraged them to shave their beards, which symbolize piety,
and to carry cigarettes, even though most Salafis do not smoke.
Last month, Lynch said at a news conference that 376 foreigners had
been detained in Iraq this year, including 78 Egyptians, 66 Syrians,
41 Sudanese and 32 Saudis. One American and one Briton also were
captured, Lynch said.
In Tall Afar, the United States launched a major offensive more than
a year ago, but insurgents regained control of much of the city
after the Americans reduced troop strength in the region to one
battalion.
This September's offensive restored order and has allowed thousands
of residents who had fled to return. The vast majority are Sunni
Muslim Turkmens, many of whom served in the army under Hussein.
Attacks have continued, including a suicide bombing carried out by a
mentally handicapped Iraqi girl, though less frequently than before,
the military reported.
"The enemy in Tall Afar consists mostly of local fighters, with a
small but dangerous network of Takfirist foreign leaders, financiers
and propagandists," said Lt. Col. Paul Yingling of the 3rd Armored
Cavalry, referring to adherents of another radical branch of Islam.
Once the regiment arrived "and began to operate with the Iraqi army
in the city, the foreign component of the insurgency became much
more cautious," he said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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