- Muslim fundamentalists from throughout the Middle East
are being drawn to Iraq for a protracted guerrilla war, senior military
officials said yesterday after a wave of weekend sabotage attacks.
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- "Far from a new Vietnam, we appear to be heading
for a new Afghanistan, Somalia or Chechnya as the next battleground between
Islam and the infidels," said one official in Washington.
-
- As he spoke fires still raged on a broken oil pipeline
in northern Iraqi and youths bathed in the water gushing from a sabotaged
water conduit in Baghdad.
-
- The latest assaults in Iraq, which included a seemingly
random mortar attack on a jail in which six Iraqis died and 59 were wounded,
seemed designed to cause havoc and sow discontent against coalition forces
in Iraq. "By taking on civilian targets as well as military the terrorists
are pursuing a two-pronged strategy in demoralising troops while building
public discontent," said Jonathan Stevenson, of the International
Institute for Strategic Studies.
-
- Contrary to President George W Bush's assertion this
month that "Iraq is more secure" than at any time since the war,
General John Abizaid, who took over in July from Tommy Franks as the US
military commander in Iraq, conceded that resistance had intensified.
-
- "They are better co-ordinated now, less amateurish
and their ability to use improvised explosive devices, combined with tactical
activity, is more sophisticated," he said.
-
- Resistance fighters speak of operating in cells of five
or six members, of being recruited at religious gatherings and of lying
low until they receive a call to act. Their aim: to create a new Islamic
state, without Saddam Hussein, but equally authoritarian. As targets are
broadened, from military to civilian, claims by Washington that the numbers
of foreign fighters in the Iraqi resistance are growing have gained credence.
-
- The change in tactics suggests that guerrillas from abroad
have grown in influence in recent weeks.
-
- Gen Richard B Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs
of staff, Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the US ground forces
in Iraq, and Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, have all suggested
that foreign terrorists were an increasing problem for American forces.
-
- Sceptics suggested that this could be an attempt to alienate
Iraq's civilian population from the resistance by suggesting that it was
being infiltrated by non-Iraqis.
-
- But more than 70 foreign fighters were reported killed
last month in a US military assault on a terrorist training camp in the
desert west of Baghdad. Local townspeople confirmed that the fighters were
from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
-
- "Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terrorism,"
Mr Wolfowitz told the Fox television network.
-
- Of particular concern to America is the attraction of
Wahhabism, an austere form of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia, which is
gaining a foothold in Iraq. Wahhabi mosques, funded by Saudi wealth, are
becoming centres of opposition to America.
-
- In June, US special forces arrested 15 Saudi Wahhabis
and captured a huge supply of weapons and ammunition.
-
- During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s
tens of thousands of Muslims volunteered to fight the invader.
-
- Trained in neighbouring Pakistan, they were financed
and armed by the CIA. When the Russians withdrew, the so-called "Afghan
Arabs" remained to form the basis of what became al-Qa'eda.
-
- Others went on to fight for Islamic causes from Bosnia
to Chechnya. Iraq is their new cause celebre.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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