WASHINGTON - New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank — both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States — have found that the vast majority of them are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war.
The studies cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the "central front" in a battle against the United States.
"The terrorists know that the outcome in Iraq will leave them emboldened or defeated," Bush said in a nationally televised address last month. "So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction."
However, interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding calls to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid.
An analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior al-Qaida operatives, "the vast majority of non-Iraqi Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."
The Israel study says: "Only a few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya."
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Interesting, I'm guessing the Saudi study and the Israeli study were done seperately... ? 8-)
Giving fundamentalists a cause to unite and fight us is a great way to win their hearts and minds... winning them for the other side that is.
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