Daily Alert Archives

Anti-U.S. Insurgents Flow into Iraq from Iran, Syria

(Middle East Newsline) Islamic combatants are entering Iraq from neighboring Iran and Syria for the insurgency war against U.S. troops. U.S. officials said the insurgents include hundreds of Saudis and Syrians. "The people we're scooping up, in many cases, are not Iraqis," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday. "There's some Syrians in the latest net that was cast. And I'm sure there are people - either they were in there or they're still coming in from neighboring countries. And it is something that's obviously unhelpful." Officials said Islamic insurgency groups in the Middle East have determined that the U.S. military presence in Iraq must be fought the way the Soviet Union was fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s. They said recruitment for a Sunni insurgency war against the U.S. has taken place in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. See also U.S. May Consider Force Against Syria - Shlomo Shamir (Ha'aretz) Senior Pentagon officials say it is possible the U.S. could use force against Syria after intelligence reports that recent attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq were carried out by militants based in Syria. The reports indicated that hundreds of militants trained in Syria had been deployed inside Iraq to attack U.S. troops. Pentagon officials are particularly concerned by intelligence suggesting that some militants were planning suicide bombings against U.S. forces in Iraq.
2003-06-20 00:00:00
Full Article