nytimes.com
Calls to Jihad Are Said to Lure Hundreds of Militants Into Iraq
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER
Published: November 1, 2003
LONDON, Oct. 31 — Across Europe and the Middle East, young militant Muslim men are answering a call issued by Osama bin Laden and other extremists, and leaving home to join the fight against the American-led occupation in Iraq, according to senior counterterrorism officials based in six countries.
The intelligence officials say that since late summer they have detected a growing stream of itinerant Muslim militants headed for Iraq. They estimate that hundreds of young men from an array of countries have now arrived in Iraq by crossing the Syrian or Iranian borders.
But the officials say this influx is not necessarily evidence of coordination by Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, since it remains unclear if the men are under the control of any one leader or what, if any, role they have had in the kind of deadly attacks that shook Baghdad on Monday. A European intelligence official called the foreign recruits "foot soldiers with limited or no training."
A senior British official, who was in Iraq in September, said most of the foreign men captured there were from the Middle East — Syria, Lebanon and Yemen — or North Africa. He described them as "young, angry men" motivated by the "anti-British, anti-American rhetoric that fills their ears every day."
Signs of a movement to Iraq have also been detected in Europe. Jean-Louis Bruguière, France's top investigative judge on terrorism, said dozens of poor and middle-class Muslim men had left France for Iraq since the summer. He said some of them appeared to have been inspired by exhortations of Qaeda leaders, even if they were not trained by Al Qaeda.
<font color=red>Mr. Bruguière, who earlier this year opened an investigation of young men leaving France to fight on the side of Muslims in Chechnya, said the traffic to Iraq was now a similar problem. He called the changing pattern "a new threat." <font color=black>
The rising agitation in parts of the Muslim world over the American-led occupation in Iraq was clear at Friday Prayers at Al Nur Mosque in a working-class section of Berlin. Dr. Izzeldin Hamad, the director of the Saudi-financed mosque, said political discussion was banned there.
But outside, a 21-year-old man who identified himself as Akmed said that while Saddam Hussein was unpopular, now "there are people who are angry about the American occupation." He and others said that inside the mosque, collections usually requested for Muslims in Palestine and Chechnya were now being offered for Iraq as well.
An initial hint that Iraq would become a magnet for foreign recruits came just before the war began in March, with the arrest in Syria of four Algerian men, who had been living in Hamburg and attending a mosque frequented by three of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The authorities believed that the men intended to fight in Iraq.
One of them, Abderazak Mahdjoub, whom German investigators have linked to a Spanish-based terror network, is under investigation for alleged involvement in a planned terror strike on a tourist location on the Costa del Bravo in Spain. Syria deported the men to Germany, but none of the four men is in custody, since there is no German law against going to Iraq.
A senior German intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the authorities had detected other cases of immigrants in Germany trying to go to Iraq. "We know that in Germany there are people in the militant Muslim scene who are willing to go other places to participate in jihad, including Iraq," the official said.
There are scattered reports from other places, including Saudi Arabia, where a senior Saudi official said two Saudi militants, believed to have ties to Al Qaeda, were missing from the kingdom and believed by the authorities to have gone to Iraq.
Intelligence officials, who base their assessment of the traffic into Iraq on surveillance of mosques and Islamic centers and on interrogations of terrorist suspects captured inside Iraq, say they have found no connections between the recruits. "Nobody is organizing this move from Europe to Iraq," a senior European counterterrorism official said. "At least it is difficult to analyze and know who is organizing this. This may be just the beginning of a new phenomenon."
United States troops patrolling the long Iraq-Syria border have said they have not detained any foreign recruits entering Iraq, but officials investigating attacks on allied targets say they have little question that militant Muslims are being drawn to the country. "It's pretty clear their number is increasing," a senior American official said.
The number of attacks is also increasing. In the last week, the average number of attacks against allied or international relief targets exceeded two dozen a day, from 12 attacks daily in July.
This week's attacks produced some evidence of the role of foreigners in Iraq. One would-be suicide bomber who was shot and wounded by Iraqi policemen was later identified as a man of Yemeni descent who was holding a Syrian passport.
In addition, Monday's multiple, coordinated suicide bombings were a sign to some investigators that foreign terrorists may have added a level of sophistication to the attacks.
Military officials say they suspect that a senior official in Mr. Hussein's government is recruiting foreign fighters to Iraq. They said Izzat Ibrahim, the "king of clubs" in the deck of cards of the most-wanted members of the deposed government, was believed to be a leading organizer and financier of recent attacks.
But allied forces are still struggling to figure out the dimensions and composition of the opponent they now face in Iraq. "We are quite blind there," said the head of an intelligence agency in Europe. He added: "The Americans and Brits know very little about this enemy. They are trying to fight an enemy they cannot see."
As a result, allied forces assume that they are fighting a loose conglomerate of like-minded opponents. Counterterrorism officials estimated that as many as 15 militant groups, some with loose ties to Al Qaeda, might now be operating in Iraq.
"Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, loyalists, disgruntled former army personnel — they are all suspects, but there is no focus on a specific group," said a senior American counterterrorism official; Ansar is a terror group that had been operating in northern Iraq and is suspected to have had a role in the attacks in recent months.
Mr. Bruguière, the French investigative judge, said there were signs of Al Qaeda's influence in Iraq. "Since we had no evidence of an Al Qaeda connection in Iraq before the war, this is worrying," he said.
American officials closest to the intelligence from Iraq say the definition of the enemy is blurry. "Iraq is a magnet for jihadists just as Afghanistan was," a senior official said. "But the bigger question is whether leadership is evolving or coordination. So far we haven't seen it."
For months, the role in Iraq of "foreign fighters" — particularly those of Al Qaeda — has been a matter of sharp debate among American officials and intelligence officials in Europe and the Middle East.
Before the American-led invasion in March, counterterrorism officials and terrorism experts warned that the military action would be used by militant Muslims to recruit a new generation of terrorists, and that Iraq would draw them into the fray.
Al Qaeda leaders have repeatedly invoked the struggle in Iraq. In an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera satellite network earlier this month, Mr. bin Laden cited Iraq as the newest front in the terror network's international jihad.
"I say to our brothers, the mujahedeen in Iraq, I share your concerns and feel your pain," Mr. bin Laden said in the 31-minute audiotape. He called on young Muslims to go to Iraq to fight, saying, "You have to go wage jihad and show your muscles."
A day later, President Bush sought to draw a parallel between Mr. bin Laden's call to arms and the effort against terrorism. "The bin Laden tape should say to everybody the war on terror goes on, that there's still a danger to free nations," he said.
But a senior European intelligence official said he doubted that Al Qaeda had established a strong enough organization in Baghdad to pull off attacks, given how fractured Mr. bin Laden's network appears to be.
"Al Qaeda would need a level of organization and sophistication that I don't think it currently has," he said. But he said he did believe that some Qaeda members were now in Iraq "trying to stir up trouble."
There is little debate that more and more people are stirring trouble in Baghdad. Just who they are and where they are from remains a matter of speculation. In September, the authorities in Iraq arrested nine men they suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda. But officials have learned little about them or their connections through interrogations.
"They are not saying much," said one official knowledgeable about the arrests. "But they may just be foot soldiers who don't know that much."
Don Van Natta Jr. reported for this article from London and Desmond Butler from Berlin. Additional reporting was provided by Lowell Bergman and David Johnston in Washington. |
