Coalition Gains Insight Into Iraq’s Foreign Insurgents

The young Saudi drifted about the lawless Iraqi-Syrian border in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, seeking a place where he could channel his urge for holy war.

He made it to a training camp in the immense desert of western Iraq, U.S. officials say, before infiltrating the country’s Sunni Muslim heartland. He was captured late last year, the sole survivor of a squad of three Arabs from outside Iraq who launched a virtual suicide attack on a U.S. checkpoint east of here.

Military officials say Mohammed Kadir Hussen’s odyssey from his hometown, Jidda, to the battlegrounds of Iraq -- a journey outlined in a diary seized when he was arrested, a document now known as “the Book” -- provides a glimpse into what remains one of the murkiest aspects of the Iraq insurgency: the role of foreign jihadists, or so-called holy warriors of Islam.

“The Book talked about the jihad: how the jihad was going to happen whether Saddam Hussein survived the war or not,” said Col. David A. Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which occupies a great swath of western Iraq and seized the young Saudi and his unusual travelogue. “People were coming from all over to fight and kill Westerners.”

So many foreign fighters are said to have congregated in Qusaybah, a longtime smuggling hub, that the military nicknamed it “the jihad Super Bowl,” Teeples said.

The Army says the primary threat in Iraq remains loyalists of the former regime. The foreign contingent may represent no more than 5% to 10% of the overall insurgent force of up to 5,000 people, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad.

But commanders also say the foreign fighters’ impact has been significant and has probably yielded the bulk of what has become perhaps the insurgents’ most potent weapon -- suicide bombers. However, the Army adds that no successful suicide bomber has been positively identified.

Although Hussein’s alleged relationship with Al Qaeda was one of the justifications for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, no definitive operational link has yet been demonstrated between the Islamic militants and Hussein’s decidedly secular government.

Support Networks

But with borders porous in the wake of the invasion, highly motivated jihadists -- eager to confront Americans on Arab soil -- have infiltrated the country, U.S. commanders concede. These shadowy forces have largely remained under the radar as the Army concentrates on cells of Hussein loyalists, commanders say.

“Perhaps with all the focus on former regime elements, some kind of screen is now down, and those terrorists who want to fight Americans are coming in,” said Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine of the 82nd Airborne Division, which patrols the Fallouja zone, a hotbed of the insurgency.

There is no way to measure the influx of foreign combatants. They continue to arrive despite operations breaking down what Army officers call “rat lines” of support for jihadists arriving via Syria in the west and Iran in the east. In the last two weeks, the Army says, an Iranian and an Afghan were arrested in Baghdad while trying to put a roadside bomb in place, and a Jordanian with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher was taken into custody. Several Egyptians and a suspected Yemeni extremist were picked up in Fallouja.

Last month, President Bush himself announced the capture of Hassan Ghul, who U.S. officials say may be the first confirmed Al Qaeda operative arrested in Iraq. Ghul was allegedly a courier for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- and, like Ghul, a Pakistani.

U.S. commanders say it is extremely difficult to determine if the foreign fighters whom they detain are linked to Al Qaeda or other terror organizations, such as Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish extremist group suspected of having connections to the twin suicide attacks last week at Kurdish political party headquarters in northern Iraq that killed more than 100 people. Some of those captured boast of international terror affiliations; others deny such ties. Proving or disproving it can be almost impossible.

“No one is walking around with an Al Qaeda identity card, as far as I know,” said Col. Joe Anderson, who oversaw the occupation of the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas with the 101st Airborne Division, which is returning home after almost a year in Iraq.

Many fighters captured or killed carry no identification whatsoever, so their origins remain murky. In such cases, officials rely on clues such as foreign currency found in their possession or, in the case of prisoners, their accents. Foreign fighters, frequently embracing martyrdom, are also more likely to fight to the death than other insurgents, commanders say.

Many of the foreign jihadists appear to be disaffected young men harboring an abiding hatred of the West, but having little or no experience in training camps or the battlefield -- a common profile among Saudis and others who have gravitated to holy war venues like Afghanistan and Chechnya. This seems to have been the case with Mohammed Kadir Hussen.

“He was a poor Saudi guy without a lot of prospects,” said a U.S. military intelligence official familiar with Hussen’s travelogue. “He started out wanting to help other Muslims, and it evolved into this jihad.”

Army officials agreed to talk in general terms about the young Saudi’s life and diary but declined to provide a copy. The document has been translated into English and distributed among intelligence agencies.

U.S. authorities say they have traced efficient networks bringing in foreign jihadists. Middlemen known as “facilitators,” mostly Iraqis, help guide the young fighters and direct them to safe houses where they can stay, arrange for basic training and acquire arms. Eventually they are deployed against U.S. forces.

The Army recently detained one such alleged facilitator, Madi Thiab Ruhaybi, an Iraqi man in his 50s known as Abu Mohammed who was captured near the bustling Trebil crossing point on the Iraq-Jordan border.

“Abu Mohammed was kind of a runner, a go-to guy, a guy who gets things done,” the military intelligence official said. “He would go to the border and pick someone up, move money from here to there, get weapons -- he would make all that happen. He was a mid- to lower-level guy, certainly not a decision-maker.

“If you’re the boss, you need someone like Abu Mohammed to go out and do the dirty work. He knows where to go to get weapons. If you need coordination with your buddy in Syria to get foreign fighters in, he’s the guy who goes out and makes the connection.”

A Violent Partnership

He is the kind of intermediary with whom Hussen probably hooked up when he arrived in Iraq. The fervent Saudi, in his 20s, is believed to have crossed the border in April or May, after Hussein’s fall. He arrived first at this border outpost, at the time virtually wide open, officials said, and probably made contact with pro-Hussein hard-liners aiding foreign volunteers.

A marriage of convenience between former regime allies and foreign jihadists has marked the insurgency, U.S. officials say.

“The jihad people who came in had their own agenda. They were not connected to former regime loyalists, but to Islamic extremists,” Teeples said. “But as this thing evolved, it became obvious that the best network for anyone coming from outside to fight would be to contact former regime loyalists. Those were the people who knew who to call, where to find safe houses, where to get their hands on money, weapons, transportation. They had intelligence on where the coalition troops were moving convoys, where troops were stationed, where mortars could be set up.”

Many, including the Saudi, are believed to have passed through what U.S. authorities called a terrorist training camp near the town of Rawah in northwest Iraq, amid Iraq’s wadi country of rolling desert, gulches and wild sheep -- ideal places to pitch a tent and lie low. U.S. officials suspect the camp was set up after Hussein’s fall to assist foreign fighters and Iraqis with weapons training and tactics, such as how to make and deploy roadside bombs. The facility didn’t escape the notice of U.S reconnaissance aircraft.

According to the military, Army and special forces, apparently zeroing in on the facility through aerial imagery, bombed the site in a surprise predawn assault in the second week in June, killing at least 57 combatants, mostly foreign fighters. Many died while they slept in their tents.

An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter was shot down in heavy fighting, although no U.S. troops were killed.

Hussen escaped death, along with several colleagues. But the experience embittered him.

“He just kind of ended up in the camp in Rawah: He didn’t know that was going to be his destination until he got there,” the military intelligence officer said. “He talked about the anguish of losing the friends he had been training with, his fellow terrorists.”

Hussen continued drifting toward jihad. He wrote that he was involved in an ambush against U.S. forces in Fallouja. His description coincided with an actual ambush in which no one was injured, a fact that helped corroborate the Saudi’s story.

Hussen’s journey ended on Nov. 19. That’s when he and two other foreign fighters approached a U.S. checkpoint in a vehicle, said Lt. Col. Butch Kievenaar, whose unit was manning the checkpoint. One got out of the car with a pistol and was gunned down. Another pulled out a grenade, which detonated, killing him. Hussen survived.

He was picked up the day before a massive, almost two-week Army onslaught known as Operation Rifles Blitz. It was a campaign to retake this border town, which was in the grip of insurgents who had slain the police chief and routed the force, attacking U.S. troops daily with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

U.S. forces sealed off Qusaybah and surrounding areas. Troops searched virtually every home -- more than 8,000 residences -- and took more than 350 suspects into custody, Teeples said. Few foreigners were among them, but many Iraqis here have longtime tribal and smuggling connections across the seamless border.

The operation yielded information about the foreign fighter network throughout the Euphrates River valley, stretching back toward the western cities of Ramadi and Fallouja, where Islamic militancy has become integrated into the insurgency.

Graffiti in Fallouja declares that it is halal, or religiously acceptable, to kill Americans. Osama bin Laden’s name is often mentioned with respect in Fallouja, typically followed by “May God save him.” Several prayer leaders, or imams, have been implicated in the armed opposition. One was killed last summer along with nine others when a bomb factory at his mosque compound blew up, U.S. authorities say. A prominent imam arrested last year for inciting anticoalition violence was found to be housing a Yemeni militant with links to terror groups, the Army says.

“We know that in Fallouja there has been an increase in intelligence and information leading us to foreign fighters,” said Drinkwine, of the 82nd Airborne. “We’ve captured people who had Al Qaeda literature, who are believed to be Al Qaeda, which showed us the dark, foreign fighter-terrorist element now working in Fallouja.”