Foreign fighters feed Iraqi violence

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Answering Osama bin Laden's call for holy war in Iraq, hundreds of followers from at least eight nations have entered the country and are playing a major role in attacking Western targets and Iraqi civilians, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Operatives of the al-Qaida network and affiliated extremist groups are collaborating with Saddam Hussein loyalists, officials say, forming an array of shadowy alliances that are emerging as one of the biggest challenges to U.S. efforts to bring stability to the war- torn country.

Some officials believe that Iraq is replacing Afghanistan as the worldwide center of Islamic jihad and becoming the prime locale for extremist Muslim fighters who are eager to confront Americans on Arab soil.

As many as 2,000 Islamic fighters from as far as Sudan, Algeria and Afghanistan are operating in Iraq, officials say. Ansar al Islam, an Iraqi group affiliated with al-Qaida and previously active in northern Iraq, also has made a comeback, officials say.

Although many of the foreign militants likely operate in small cells independent of any central command, others appear to have hooked up with Saddam loyalists who provide money, material and logistical support. In exchange, the foreigners provide suicide bombers and experience in guerrilla tactics.

While authorities have acknowledged the presence of some of the fighters, the role they are playing in the anti-American insurgency appears to be increasing -- and their unconventional tactics make them a formidable force. Foreign fighters are suspected of taking part in as many as a dozen suicide bombings that have killed more than 200 people in the past three months, including four simultaneous attacks in Baghdad on Oct. 27.

"Since mid-July we have seen the reconstitution of Ansar al Islam and al-Qaida," L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the U.S.-led reconstruction, said at a briefing of visiting Americans last week. "They are coming back into Iraq."

Jalal Talibani, the president of Iraq's Governing Council, estimates that 500 to 2,000 Islamic militants from foreign countries are operating in Iraq, including some who might have been here since before the war. Some officials of the U.S.-led coalition cite the same figure.

The largest group of militants is from neighboring Syria, officials say, while others have come from Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Palestinian territories.

"The big majority of those criminals who are committing terror actions are from al-Qaida" and associated militant Muslim organizations, Talibani said. "Those who are making suicide attacks are from Islamic fundamentalist groups."

Before the war, President Bush contended that al-Qaida was active in Iraq. But it was not until several months after U.S. troops occupied the country that Islamic extremists, taking advantage of the postwar chaos, began launching attacks.

U.S. officials acknowledge that they are handicapped in combating the surge in Islamic extremism because they have little information about the attackers or their activities.

Authorities believe that some of the fighters are al-Qaida operatives and others are members of extremist groups affiliated with the terror network, such as Ansar al Islam. Officials suspect that the groups operate as independent cells but are cooperating to some degree with each other and with Saddam loyalists seeking to regain power.

In September, Bremer told reporters in Washington, D.C., that 248 foreign fighters had been arrested in Iraq, including 19 suspected al- Qaida members. It is unclear when the arrests took place.

Bin Laden, who was critical of Saddam while he was in power, has called on Muslims to go to Iraq and avenge the U.S. invasion.

"God knows if I could find a way to your field, I wouldn't stall," a voice identified as bin Laden's said in an audiotape released in mid-October. "You my brother fighters in Iraq . . . I tell you: You are God's soldiers and the arrows of Islam, and the first line of defense for this (Muslim) nation today." It is difficult to measure the extent of ties between Saddam loyalists and the foreign fighters. Some officials believe that a new alliance between al-Qaida-trained foreigners and former agents of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's intelligence service, is behind some of the terror attacks.

"They are now fully operational and clandestine and working with terrorist groups to start hitting targets," said Iyad Allawi, a member of the Governing Council and its security committee. "They are getting more clever, and we will see more attacks in the weeks ahead."

In the battle against the U.S. presence in Iraq, the foreign fighters can contribute their seasoning as guerrilla warriors who are skilled in reconnaissance and mounting surprise attacks while keeping a low profile in a foreign land.

The Saddam loyalists can offer their knowledge of local targets and the location of weapons caches that can be used to make bombs. Top Iraqi operatives can contribute cash, much of it stolen shortly before or during the war.

The Iraqis also might be in contact with sympathizers who work near American or international targets. It appears, for instance, that some of the Iraqis working at the United Nations at the time of the bombing had worked there during Saddam's regime.

Allawi said recent intelligence indicates that former Mukhabarat agents and al-Qaida or its affiliates are forming a "field command" that would be responsible for operations against Americans and their supporters.

U.S. officials say there are an average of 29 attacks a day on coalition forces, most of them low-level incidents apparently staged by Saddam supporters. Some major attacks also appear to be the work of Saddam loyalists, including the downing of a Chinook helicopter near the town of Fallujah on Nov. 2 that killed 16 people and the shelling of Baghdad's Al Rashid Hotel Oct. 26, that killed one and injured seven.

But other attacks bear the stamp of al-Qaida: in particular, suicide car bombings of targets that are carefully selected for maximum psychological effect and to inflict a large number of casualties.

Authorities were able to establish the role of foreign extremists in the Oct. 27 bombings when police foiled a planned attack on a fourth Baghdad police station.

The would-be suicide bomber rammed a police barricade with his SUV, which was packed with explosives. The vehicle did not explode. When the man jumped out and threw a hand grenade at police, an officer shot and wounded him.

"Iraqis are traitors!" the attacker shouted at police, authorities say. "I am an Arab, you cowards! Allahu akbar (God is great)!"

Initially thought to be a Syrian, the would-be bomber was a Yemeni who entered the country through Syria, authorities now say. He is believed to be in U.S. custody. There is no indication what he might have told investigators.

In the past three months, Iraq has seen 13 vehicle bomb attacks. At least 10 of them were suicide bombings, authorities say. The targets have included one of Iraq's holiest Shiite Muslim shrines, police stations, U.N. offices, U.S. facilities and the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Most of the victims have been Iraqis.

Iraqi officials say the willingness to commit suicide and to target civilians are uncharacteristic of attacks by Saddam loyalists but are a common tactic for Islamic terrorists.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities as well as former agents of the Mukhabarat suspect that Islamic terrorists were involved in the deadliest attacks: The Aug. 19 car bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people; the Aug. 29 bombing of the Imam Hussein shrine in Najaf that killed 95 people; the Oct. 12 bombing of the Baghdad Hotel that killed eight people; and the Oct. 27 attacks on the police stations and Red Cross that killed at least 35 people.

Two of the attacks might have been targeted assassinations of widely respected leaders who could have played a key role in stabilizing and reconstructing Iraq: the esteemed Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr Hakim, who was killed in the Najaf bombing; and U.N. Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, a strong advocate of handing over power to a new Iraqi government, who was killed in the U.N. headquarters blast.

Some officials fear that the growing Islamist movement in Iraq could give a boost to the extremist cause and train a new core of Muslim fighters, just as the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union did in the 1980s.

A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington, D.C., said Iraq has emerged as the focal point for Islamic jihad, becoming the most active front in the movement and the top priority for Muslim fighters who want to confront the United States.

The assessment, shared by analysts at the CIA and other agencies, underscores how in a matter of months Iraq has supplanted Afghanistan, Chechnya and other international trouble spots as the core of the jihad cause.

While many people in the West have been skeptical of Bush's contention that there was an alliance between Saddam and Islamic extremists, members of the Governing Council say the dictator began reaching out to the militants more than two years ago.

During the war, at least 5,000 foreign fighters came from outside the country to aid the regime, Iraqi officials estimate. Many entered through Syria where buses would fill up in Damascus with Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians and occasionally Moroccans and Tunisians, according to injured fighters interviewed in Damascus, the Syrian capital, after their return. There is no estimate of how many fighters remained after the war ended.

With the U.S. occupation, Iraq's border guards vanished, creating new opportunities for militants to enter the country. The crossings opened up and people streamed into Iraq without having to show their passports.

Paddock and Rubin reported from Baghdad, and Miller from Washington.

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