Calls to Jihad Are Said to Lure Hundreds of Militants Into Iraq

[radfringe]

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."

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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."

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