By LOUIS MEIXLER
Associated Press Writer
August 14th, 2004, 1:17 PM EDT
ANKARA, Turkey -- Islamic militants volunteering to fight in Iraq or carrying cash to fuel the insurgency are using fake passports or bribes to sneak across the Syrian border into Iraq, according to the U.S.-led coalition. Others bypass guard posts and simply drive across the poorly patrolled desert border.
Iraqi and U.S. officials are boosting efforts to close the porous crossing points, calling it a key step in fighting the insurgency. But they have to protect 2,200 miles of frontier shared with six countries -- Turkey, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Iraq is training 15,000 new border guards and hopes to have them in place within six weeks in an effort to stem the flow of volunteers, said Ziad Cattan, deputy secretary general of the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Cattan refused to say how many guards are now on the border, commenting only that it was "really not a lot."
U.S. forces began Operation Phantom Linebacker in early August, sending thousands of Marines, soldiers and Special Forces troops to beef up Iraqi border patrols, said Maj. Denise Varner, spokeswoman for coalition forces in Baghdad.
Also, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has lobbied the leaders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to better patrol their borders and plans to visit Iran soon, his spokesman, Georges Sada, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Baghdad.
The problem is so serious that Iran has offered to host a conference on border security for Iraq's neighbors, although no clear date has been set.
Under Saddam Hussein, at least 50,000 paramilitary troops patrolled Iraq's borders, and local tribes were paid to monitor areas where they lived, said Amatzia Baram, an Iraq specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.
But the system collapsed with the fall of Saddam last year.
"The Americans cannot spare the soldiers and the equipment and the Iraqi border guards are not there," Baram said.
Although infiltrators cross the mountainous Iranian border or the border with Saudi Arabia, Varner said, "the Syrian border poses the largest problem now."
Some fighters cross at poorly patrolled points of the border, but most choose to cross at checkpoints on major highways, Varner said.
"They use fake documents or bribes," Varner said. "Foreign fighters are well-prepared enough and sophisticated enough to get the fake documents."
Syria denies allowing fighters to enter Iraq, but says it cannot thoroughly patrol the whole 360-mile border.
On Monday, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said guns from Iran were discovered on some of the Shiite militiamen fighting U.S. forces in the south of the country. Overwhelmingly Shiite Iran has denied interfering in Iraq, but Tehran is believed to be trying to increase its influence among Iraqi Shiites.
Police in southern Iraq said they arrested 315 Iranians and Afghans with fake passports Wednesday. Four of them confessed to planning terror operations and 16 were being questioned, said Rahman Mishawi, police spokesman in the southern city of Karbala.
Border patrols also have uncovered weapons, including assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, military officials said, but arms smuggling is not that significant a problem given the huge quantities already in the country.
Cattan said many of the militants join groups fighting in the Sunni triangle, a hotbed of resistance to the U.S.-led coalition. More than 1,000 foreign fighters were active in the area of Samarra, a city in the Sunni triangle, Cattan said.
U.S. officials said it was difficult to accurately estimate the number of foreign fighters, but it is not believed to be very large.
Some of the recruits, however, are destined for militant networks, including that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose al-Qaida-linked terror group has claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed hundreds. Al-Zarqawi is believed to have infiltrated from Iran.
Although the insurgency is believed to consist overwhelmingly of local Iraqis, networks like Zarqawi's are singled out as among the most dangerous in Iraq.
"These guys ... will go for jihad anywhere. The danger is not only that they will succeed but that they will succeed in radicalizing the Iraqi insurgents," Baram said.
Turkish officials say they suspect that the alleged al-Qaida-linked masterminds of the November bombings in Istanbul that killed more than 60 people fled to Iraq, possibly via Syria.
The traffic apparently moves both ways. Late last month, Turkish border police discovered some 220 pounds of plastic explosives in a truck crossing from Iraq, apparently destined for Kurdish rebels in Turkey.
Most of the foreign fighters have little or no military training and U.S. forces are closely patrolling the country to make sure insurgents cannot set up training bases, a senior U.S. official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
The foreign fighters receive limited hands-on training and practice with unloaded guns to save resources, the official added.
Some of the insurgents' funding comes from Saudi Arabia through wealthy financiers or from Syria, where money from other countries also is collected and smuggled across the border, the senior military official said.
"If you have the border sealed you can get rid of these guys," Baram said. "If you don't, you simply can't. It will become a permanent feature of Iraqi life."
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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