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Terror Networks

Days before death, Al Zarqawi had turned against Shi'ite Hizbullah

2006-06-09

From Geostrategy-Direct, subscription. For the first time, Al Qaida has publicly expressed opposition to the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah. Before he was killed by U.S. forces on June 7, Al Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi had warned Hizbullah to disarm and urged Sunnis in Lebanon to oppose the Shi'ite group. In an audio message posted on the Internet, Al Zarqawi said Hizbullah was protecting Israel. "Hizbullah is an independent state inside Lebanon," said Al Zarqawi, in a message broadcast by the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera television. "It presents deceitful slogans about Palestinian liberation when in fact it serves as a security wall [for Israel] and prevents Sunnis from crossing its borders." It was the first time Al Qaida has spoken out against Hizbullah. Over the past year, several anonymous attacks against Hizbullah in Lebanon have been attributed to Al Zarqawi. "Oh, Sunnis," Al Zarqawi said in a four-hour tape. "Prepare to get rid of the infidel snakes and their poison and don't listen to those advocating an end to sectarianism and calling for national unity. This is a weapon to get you to surrender." A four-hour tape????? This guy was going for the Fidel Castro blowhard award. Out of your league, Zark. Hizbullah quickly responded to Al Zarqawi. On June 2, Hizbullah cleric Afif Nabilsi warned Al Zarqawi to stop inciting the Sunni community in Lebanon. "Hey, Zark! This is our turf. F*ck off and die. (Whoa....Allan listened to us...that's heavy...we better think our requests through so we don't screw up). On June 1, thousands of Hizbullah members and supporters rampaged through southern Beirut as well as the Bekaa Valley to protest a Lebanese television show that lampooned Hizbullah Secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. "Watch out, Mamoud! There's a herd of Hiz-bees on a stampede and they're comin' yer way! Take Cover. They're like hornets with turbans!" Police did not intervene. "We ain't touchin' em. They're frogs-in-a-box mental!"

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Iraq

Al-Qaeda in Iraq losing loyalty of senior commanders

2006-04-10

The U.S. military has determined that Al Qaida was losing the loyalty of its senior operatives in Iraq. Officials said the U.S.-led coalition has received significant cooperation from captured aides of Al Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. They said information provided by these insurgents has led to the discovery of other Al Qaida commanders as well as weapons caches. "What we're finding is there's a lack of a specific quality inside the Zarqawi network, and that quality is loyalty," U.S. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said. Over the weekend, about 85 people were killed and 140 were injured in a series of bombings that targeted Shi'ites in Baghdad. Officials said the attackers were disguised as women and struck a Shi'ite mosque.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israeli intelligence predicts fall of Jordan's Hashemite kingdom

2006-03-04

From Geostrategy-direct, subscription. JERUSALEM — Israel's intelligence community has determined that stability is declining in Egypt and Jordan. The two countries, which have peace agreements with Israel, are considered as among the most powerful states in the Middle East. Egypt and Jordan both have air forces based on U.S. platforms... Egypt also has the Muslim Brotherhood and its children, who'll likely displace Mubarak in the sweet by and by. Jordan's got Zarqa, home of Zarqawi and lots of Zark wannabes. Of the two, I'd say Jordan's got more of a chance that Egypt, since Abdullah is a young, vigorous fellow and the Jordanian courts are willing to hang people. Hosni's heavily into Grecian Formula and would be in a nursing home in any rational country. "I don't want to be a prophet," said Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, head of Israel military's Central Command. "But I don't think there will be another king after Abdullah." Maybe not, but he's a young fellow. Got a lot of miles left on him, and the Gordian Knot's been cut. Ten years from now the Middle East is going to look quite a bit different, even if only the trends in place continue. At age 78 come this May, Hosni probably won't be around to see it. Naveh, who meets regularly with senior Jordanian military commanders, said 80 percent of Jordan's population was Palestinian. In a lecture at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on Feb. 22, Naveh, referring to intelligence assessments, said the strengthening of Hamas and Al Qaida-aligned groups would eventually end Hashemite rule in Jordan. Bad thing. Egypt is going hostile, and if Jordan falls to the Paleos, then Israel will be squeezed from all sides, which would be the Plan by al Q, Iran and clients, and all other hostiles to Israel. On the other hand, Jordan's got Israel on one side and a potentially stable Iraq on the other side, and a potentially stable post-Assad Syria to the north of them. "There is already a Palestinian majority [in Jordan]," Naveh said. "There are ties to Hamas. In another few years, there will be a great strengthening of Hamas in Jordan." They are on a roll, as long as Iran is funding them. Take Iran out of the equation, and things take a different turn. At some point within that 10-year window I mentioned, Iran will be out of the equation. I'm not sure if Soddy Arabia will be, but things will also be different there, since the Soddy King Abdullah is approximately the same age as Hosni, and I think his crown prince is only a year or two younger. I'd call it a race against time, with time probably favoring us, if not on our side. It was the first time in decades that a senior Israeli military or intelligence official publicly predicted the demise of the Hashemite kingdom. Naveh did not offer a timetable. This is quite a thing to say in public. Officials said military intelligence has envisioned a long-term Islamic threat against Egypt and Jordan that would affect the military balance with Israel. The Islamic opposition would hamper Hashemite rule in Jordan as well as efforts by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power to his son, Gamal, they said. If Egypt is really in on this, they need our money dried up to them. Last week, two senior military commanders discussed these assessments in public forums, provoking diplomatic protests from unspecified nations. Jordan is one of them, heh. Later, officials said Israel had raised concerns over the future of Abdullah's regime during a strategic dialogue with the United States in late 2005. They said Israel also reported a decline in the stability of the regimes in Egypt, Syria and the Palestinian Authority. "These things are known," said Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, after an intelligence briefing on Feb. 23. "We don't need the generals to know this." Everybody needs to know this. Of course you will not hear it on the MSM. On Feb. 22, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski told a gathering of industrialists in Haifa that Mubarak was losing his authority. Kaplinski referred to the increasing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood and the deteriorating health of the Egyptian president. Inverse proportional relationship. ... "Also in Egypt, there are signs of wavering of the regime," Kaplinski said. "The entire area is very dynamic and highlighted by a lack of certainty." Dynamic is a kind word for it, and lack of certainty is an understatement. Hours later, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz released a joint statement that described Jordan's future as bright. Officials said Naveh would also send an apology to Jordan. Kaplinski was not publicly rebuked. Made nice, but the cat's out of the bag. I'd go with the bright future scenario for Jordan, for the reasons I outlined above. Egypt's always been a basket case. "There has been a drastic change in the assessment by military intelligence over the last few weeks," an official said. "Military intelligence was surprised by the Hamas victory [in Palestinian Legislative Council elections] and the significant rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt. We could be witnessing the formation of an Islamic ring around Israel, and the military feels it must provide warning." Responsible to state, frightening in its implications. I'm not overjoyed by the Hamas victory, but I'm not as surprised as the Israelis seem to be. Surely they could see Fatah splitting into two competing factions, fighting over the boodle before they got it? But Hamas has its own built-in problems. First, they're no more immune to corruption than Fatah. The Hamas bigs live just as large. Second, Meshaal hasn't set foot in Paleostine in years. He lives in Damascus and flits around to Beirut and occasionally Teheran. Those are his owners, not the Paleostinians, and he's looking out for his owners' interests. There's not a solution to that problem since he's likely to eat a few feet of missile if he comes back and a bus booms. Naveh said Israel faces the prospect of an Islamic takeover in such Arab countries as Iraq, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. This could result in the revival of a hostile eastern front against the Jewish state, particularly following of an expected U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in 2007. I have a feeling that we won't be going anywhere, given unfinished business in Iran. Officials said Al Qaida and Hamas could consolidate the Arab eastern front. Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, a Jordanian national who heads the Al Qaida network in Iraq, has been recruiting Palestinians to establish a presence along the Israeli-Jordanian frontier. Over the past two years, Jordan has captured dozens of suspected Al Zarqawi operatives accused of planning attacks against Israeli and U.S. interests. Zark started out trying to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy. Al-Tawhid, I'm guessing, is still in business, just not getting quite as much attention from the boss. Naveh said Israel's military has already detected signs of an Al Zarqawi presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He said Al Zarqawi has sought to build a support infrastructure that would eventually recruit Palestinians for mass-casualty attacks against Israel. Getting ready for the Big Show against Israel. "Al Qaida is trying to establish awareness in the Gaza Strip," Naveh said. "The next stage is for terrorism. I don't think Zarqawi will bring terrorists to Gaza. He doesn't have to. What he can do is exploit Hamas and take it [attacks] to another level." IMHO, we are seeing the greatest threat to Israel forming right before our eyes. The key to so many things---disasters as well as solutions---is Iran and how to deal with the M²s.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan alert: 4 suicide cars have entered country

2006-01-26

Jordan has isssue an alert, warning foreign embassies that suicide bombers may have entered the country. Jordanian sources said authorities suspected that four vehicles packed with explosives have entered the Hashemite kingdom from either Iraq or Syria. The sources said the vehicles were being prepared for a suicide strike around Western embassies in Amman. The alert has resulted in increased security around embassies in Amman, Middle East Newsline reported. Several Western embassies have also decreased their personnel and reduced hours of some departments to avoid exposure to attack. "We are positive that there has been an attempt to bring these cars into Jordan," a source said. "We are not sure whether all, some or any of these vehicles managed to enter." The sources said the car bomb plot was drafted by Al Qaida in Iraq. They said Al Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi has planned a new series of strikes in wake of the killing of 57 people in coordinated suicide attacks in Amman in December 2005. The sources said Al Zarqawi has designated Jordan as his key target outside of Iraq. Jordan has strengthened its military relationship with the United States and became a meeting point of Western intelligence officials who visit or operate in the Middle East. Jordan has placed on trial about a dozen Al Qaida operatives commanded by Al Zarqawi. Al Zarqawi has vowed to attack Jordan until the kingdom releases the defendants, who include suspected fund-raisers for the insurgency movement.

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Europe

Frankistan's xformation to Muslim state not recent development

2005-11-19

From Geostrategy Direct, subscription. A lot has been covered on RB before, but a good summary here. French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy has been trying to contain an Arab uprising whose fighters have been trained in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq and possess everything from light weapons to anti-aircraft missiles. The French police are outgunned, and the govt has no leadership. In a classified report, the French military has concluded that a network of 25,000 Muslim fighters are participating in the worst violence in France in more than 40 years. The report said the so-called mujahadeen, or holy warriors, have been trained in guerrilla warfare, light weapons and intelligence. Many of them are loyal to Al Qaida chief in Iraq, Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi and make a living from drugs, prostitution and loan-sharking. As long as it is being done to infidels, its OOOOH Kay with the Holy Warriors™. Sarkozy was not taken by surprise by the Muslim riots, sparked by the electrocution of two young Muslims fleeing police and hiding in a power substation in Paris. The interior minister just didn't do anything about it. Sarkozy acknowledged that prior to the outbreak of violence late last month, some Muslim neighborhoods in Paris were ablaze nearly every night. Sarkozy said rioters were torching up to 40 cars a night in Muslim neighborhoods in the French capital. In the space of a few months, the interior minister said, 9,000 police cars had been stoned in these neighborhoods. The battle-hardened Muslim fighters dismiss French riot police, who have not been trained to combat Arab guerrilla warriors. The police are not equipped to deal with legions of Arab fighters who rush toward them with firebombs and light weapons. Neither is the French Government under Jacque and Dom. At this point, French officials are close to throwing in the towel. Their main concern now is to stop Muslims from capturing the heart of Paris. Better call the Foreign Legion. You are running out of options. And Duece Four is not available. Thousands of police patrolled the center of the city to prevent rioters from attacking the Eiffel Tower and Champs Elysees. Muslim insurgents had used Internet sites to urge attacks against French tourism and national monuments. Better have a few K near the Louvre, too. "One can easily imagine the places where we must be very vigilant," French police chief Michel Gaudin said. For Western diplomats and intelligence analysts, the question isn't why France is burning: It's why the Muslims haven't lit the match until now? For a decade, French authorities watched helplessly as pro-Al Qaida elements first took over Muslim neighborhoods and then cities such as Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Strasbourg. French police were ordered to stay out of Muslim neighborhoods that surround virtually every city. Authorities ceded control and chose to deal with Muslim-controlled municipal councils. The Appeasement Plan™ seemed to have backfired. Maybe a Blue Ribbon Commission could get the govt back on track. Intelligence sources said Al Zarqawi operatives decided to jump on the bandwagon after the second night of rioting in Muslim neighborhoods in Paris. On Oct. 30, they decided to flex their muscles and attacked police with pistols, assault rifles and firebombs. "The outbreak was spontaneous," an intelligence source said. "After the second night, when it began to spread, the Al Zarqawi leadership decided to exploit this." Insert Master of the Obvious pic hire. French police were largely helpless. Anti-riot squads had been trained to handle left-wing anti-war demonstrators or individual terrorists, not organized squadrons of Muslim fighters with light weapons. Intercepting communications meant nothing, as police officers could not understand Arabic, particularly the code used by the Islamic insurgents. Over the past 20 years, France has allowed the establishment of a separate Muslim state. In the 1980s, the European Union and Arab League signed a series of accords guaranteeing that Muslim immigrants in Europe would not be compelled in any way to adapt "to the customs of the host countries." In 1983, the Euro-Arab Dialogue issued a recommendation that non-Muslim Europeans be made "more aware of the cultural background of migrants, by promoting cultural activities of the immigrant communities or 'supplying adequate information on the culture of the migrant communities in the school curricula.'" That sealed any hope of Arab assimilation in France and other European Union countries. Many Arabs stopped learning French and took second and third wives, following Muslim customs and ignoring French law. Arab women were treated by their husbands and fathers with the same brutality they have known well in Algeria and Tunisia. French police refused to intervene. At the same time, Arab children — virtually all of them Muslims — were taught to hate France, Christians, Jews and the West. They were taught that they would lead the Muslim crusade that would destroy Christian Europe once and for all. "There are three forms of jihad: the military jihad, the economic jihad and the cultural jihad," said Geneva-based historian Bat Ye'or, author of "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis." "The EAD [Euro-Arab Dialogue] between the European Union and the Arab League has been a means of spreading the economic and cultural jihads from the Middle East to Europe," Ye'or said. France was most enthusiastic in selling its future for Arab oil. In 1967, French President Charles De Gaulle announced that France would support the Arabs and boycott Israel. De Gaulle sold weapons to the worst of Arab depots, such as Libya's Moammar Khaddafy and Iraq's Ba'athist regime. The Arab League didn't pull any punches in its dialogue with France and the EU. The Arabs demanded political concessions on a range of issues in exchange for oil. The EU, alarmed by the 1973 oil embargo, agreed and Arabs in Europe were given unofficial autonomy. Another stirling example of the success of the Appeasement Strategy™. "Eurabia's destiny was sealed when it decided, willingly, to become a covert partner with the Arab global jihad against America and Israel," Ye'or said. Over the past decade, supporters of Al Qaida have gradually replaced Muslim leaders in France and other countries. These pro-Al Qaida activists were trained in Saudi Arabia and have been aligned with Muslim veterans of the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Unlike their parents, who saw France and Europe largely as economic havens, the new Muslim activists were jihad-oriented and envisioned a takeover of a barren Christian Europe. Part of the Turn Europe into an Ecomomic and Cultural Desert Program™. "We do not want to assimilate," said Brussels-based Arab European League founder Dyab Abu Jahjah. "Assimilation is cultural rape. It means renouncing your identity, becoming like the others." There you have the gist of it, in black and white. Instead, the pro-Al Qaida Muslim activists in France adopted jihad. In the 1990s, hundreds of French Muslims flocked to Bosnia to participate in the civil war in Yugoslavia. They returned after several years as hardened fighters ready to lead the Muslim masses in jihad. With the help of the new Saudi-financed mosques, they began to indoctrinate and train Muslim teenagers in holy war and combat, guerrilla warfare and even bomb assembly. We in the US need to remember that 80% of mosques in the US are financed by the Saudis, and don't forget outreach stuff in US prisons. In France, the Muslims grew rapidly, constituting more than 10 percent of the country's population. More telling, however, is government statistics that show that Muslims make up more than 30 percent of French youngsters, including in the universities. As Muslims see it, they are the future of France. They probably are, with a 30% constituancy, and a lot more of a tighter group than French youths. The pro-Al Qaida factions began to organize neighborhoods into popular committees similar to those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the late 1980s. Youngsters were trained to spot non-Muslims, particularly police, and drive them out of the neighborhood. Muslims who showed a pro-French bent or opposed Al Qaida philosophy were beaten, expelled and even killed. Muslim leaders formed links with their counterparts throughout Europe. In conferences over the past few years, French Muslims led the call for a jihad in Europe. Authorities ignored them. In 2003, a new process began in France's Muslim neighborhoods. Recruitment began for Muslims to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. This wasn't a war against Serbian weekend warriors; it was a chance to fight the Satan himself. As a result, young French Muslims flocked to mosques to find out how to join the war in Iraq. Thousands either joined the Muslim war in Iraq, helped finance the Al Qaida insurgency, or established cells loyal to Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, the Palestinian head of Al Qaida in Iraq. The Al Zarqawi operatives were ready for battle both in France as well as in Iraq. They collected weapons, learned how to make bombs and smuggled missiles into Europe. Western intelligence sources said Al Zarqawi operatives in France have acquired the SA-18 anti-aircraft missile from the former Soviet Union. The sources said the missiles were smuggled into Turkey and acquired by Al Qaida-aligned cells in the Middle East. In 2004, intelligence sources said, France foiled a plot to destroy passenger jets with the SA-18 Igla missile. An Al Qaida-aligned cell composed of Algerian and French nationals planned to shoot the missiles from near Strasbourg. Remind me not to book a flight to Strasbourg. "This new generation of jihadists presents a major challenge for international intelligence services and law enforcement authorities since many are very young and virtually unknown, highly clandestine, evasive, many with no past criminal history or record, and fully committed to its cause," said Marco Vicenzino, executive director of the Washington-based Global Strategy Project. This is not a law enforcement issue, Marco. This is an assault on the very fabric of a nation, like it's war, man. What makes the situation even worse is that France has become essentially leaderless. President Jacques Chirac is ill and not fully functioning. Those seeking to succeed him in 2007 elections include Sarkozy and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Who is rumored to be a man, but is still uninformed speculation to date. The central government has pledged housing, education and employment in an effort to stop the Muslim violence. De Villepin also announced plans to deploy an additional 1,500 police officers to impose order. But the Al Qaida network in France has no plans to fold up. Instead, emissaries from the network, many of them French converts from Christianity, have been moving to other EU states, including Britain, to plan similar campaigns. The War for the soul of Europe has begun. This is no joke. "Americans must discuss the tragic development of Eurabia, and its profound implications for the United States," Ye'or said. "Americans should know that this self-destructive calamity did not just happen, rather it was the result of deliberate policies, executed and monitored by ostensibly responsible people. Finally, Americans should understand that Eurabia's contemporary anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism are the spiritual heirs of 1930s Nazism and anti-Semitism, triumphally resurgent," she said. We can make our snarky comments about France and the fix they are in, but this whole chain of events in Frankistan is frightening. Right, Congresswoman Pelosi? Are YOU watching and listening? We could be dealing with these type of events in the US, too, if we keep going off the LLL deep end.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan Cracks Down On Iraqi Emigrants

2005-11-14

Jordan has launched a crackdown on the large Iraqi emigrant community in wake of Al Qaida suicide attacks last week. Officials said more than 120 people have been arrested since the triple suicide strikes in luxury hotels in Amman on Nov. 9. They said most of the detainees were Iraqis -- including suspected supporters of Al Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi -- who came to Jordan over the last five years. "There are only two logistical places that they [attackers] could have come across -- either the Iraqi or the Syrian borders," Jordan's King Abdullah said. Jordan was said to have 400,000 Iraqis. Many of them left Iraq for Jordan during the Saddam Hussein regime. And many after the Saddam Hussein regime. Leave us not forget them...

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Iraq

Soddy al-Qaeda shifting ops to Iraq

2005-11-08

Saudi nationals appear to be taking over the Al Qaida network in Iraq. U.S. officials said military intelligence has detected the flow of Saudi financing and senior operatives to Al Qaida in the Al Anbar province. They said Saudis have financed leading Al Qaida operatives in the Faluja area. "It seems that senior Al Qaida operatives in Saudi Arabia have moved their operations to Iraq, where they are well-financed by prominent Saudis who don't want to see a democratic Iraq," an official said. Saudi nationals have been smuggling Al Qaida recruits into Iraq for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, officials said. They said Iraqi and U.S. units have increased their search for Saudi operatives and bolstered security along the southern Iraqi border. The Al Qaida network in Iraq has been led by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship.

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Europe

Europe braces for Ramadan al-Qaeda attacks

2005-10-06

European intelligence agencies are quietly warning of another major attack by Al Qaida. European intelligence sources said at least one security agency in the European Union has received information of Al Qaida plans to strike either Britain, Italy or the Netherlands this month. The sources said insurgency cells in Europe were being directed by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, commander of Al Qaida in Iraq. "European security services right now are obsessed with the problem of European Muslims going to Iraq and returning to their countries for violence," Daniel Byman, director of Center for Peace and Security Studies, said. "And this is a problem that's likely to grow in the coming years." The planned Al Qaida strikes were meant to coincide with the Islamic fast month of Ramadan, expected to begin over the next 48 hours. Islamic insurgency groups have reserved Ramadan for major strikes in such places as Algeria, Iraq and Israel.

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Iraq-Jordan

Al Qaida has deployed roadside bombs laced with toxins (in Iraq)

2005-08-16

Hat Tip: World Tribune Al Qaida has deployed bombs laced with toxins in an attempt to increase the lethality of attacks in Iraq, coalition military sources said. On Aug. 9, the U.S.-led coalition found a suspected chemicals factory in Mosul with 1,500 gallons of chemicals. A statement by the Multi-National Force said the facility was used to develop the bombs mixed with toxins. The statement said Sunni insurgents succeeded in employing roadside bombs that contained toxic chemicals. The MNF said coalition forces learned of the facility from suspected insurgents. The statement said the investigation would continue. Meanwhile, U.S. military sources said Iraq has killed a senior aide of Al Qaida network leader Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. The sources said Mohammed Saleh Sultan was killed in an ambush in Mosul on Aug. 12. The military said on Monday that Sultan, known as Abu Zubeir, was a leading operative in Al Qaida in Iraq. Sultan was said to have held several senior positions in Al Qaida and was accused of directing the bombing attack of an Iraqi police station in Mosul in July in which five policemen were killed. Officials said he was wearing a suicide belt filled with metal pellets when he was killed. Officials said Iraqi and U.S. forces have been particularly effective against Al Zarqawi cells in northern Iraq. They said that since June 2005 at least two Mosul cell commanders were killed. "Abu Zubeir's death, as well as recent captures of terrorists in northern Iraq, is making a difference in coalition and Iraqi security forces efforts to disrupt terrorists operating in this part of the country," Col. Bill Buckner, a coalition spokesman, said. In a letter written to Al Zarqawi and discovered in a raid on an Al Qaida safe house on July 27, an operative complained of the declining quality of the leadership. The letter, by somebody named Abu Zayd, also reported the mistreatment of foreign fighters.

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Arabia

3-5,000 Soddies fighting in Iraq

2005-06-28

Several commanders of the Al Qaida movement in Saudi Arabia have transferred their operations to Iraq in an effort to fight the U.S.-led coalition. Islamic sources said the movement of scores of leading Al Qaida fighters from Saudi Arabia has hampered operations against the Saudi regime. They said the Saudi members of Al Qaida have become aides and financiers of Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi in Iraq. About 3,000 to 5,000 Saudis have been fighting the U.S. military in Iraq. Over the past few months, about 200 Saudis returned to the kingdom. On June 23, a leading Saudi operative was reported to have been killed in a battle with U.S. troops in Al Qaim, near the Iraqi border with Syria. The operative was identified as Abdullah Al Rashoud, who was No. 24 on the Saudi Interior Ministry's list of top 26 fugitives.

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Arabia

Saudis Play A Major Role In Al Qaida's Iraq Network

2005-05-04

Saudi security officers have been determined to play a major role in Al Qaida's network in Iraq. U.S. officials said Saudi nationals, including members of the kingdom's security forces, have played a major role in Sunni insurgency attacks in Iraq. They said hundreds of Saudi nationals accused of participating in Al Qaida-aligned attacks have been arrested in Iraq over the last year. In all, about 2,000 Saudi nationals have been recruited into the Sunni insurgency, many of them in the network led by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. They were said to have included hundreds of members of the Saudi National Guard, commanded by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, who met President George Bush in Crawford, Texas in April. Officials said Saudi nationals comprise a leading element in the foreign insurgency presence in Iraq. They said the majority of the foreign fighters come from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria and their numbers are growing.

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Iraq-Jordan

Al Qaida Behind Attacks On Iraqi Shi'ites

2005-04-04

Comes as a surprise, huh? Al Qaida-aligned operatives have launched a campaign to assassinate Shi'ite leaders. Iraqi officials said operatives linked to Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, head of Al Qaida in Iraq, have been recruiting and planning strikes on Shi'ite leaders and mosques. They said Al Qaida has sought to foment a sectarian war in Iraq that would lead to the early exit of the U.S.-led coalition. "We know for certain that Zarqawi is involved and perhaps even a leader in the effort," an Iraqi official said. "What we don't know is whether he is operating on his own or on behalf of the former regime [of Saddam Hussein]." On March 17, Iraqi authorities announced the capture of an Islamic operative ordered to kill Shi'ite spiritual leader Ali Sistani. The operative was identified as a Kurd from Mosul and directed by Ansar Al Islam, a group controlled by Al Zarqawi.

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