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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Fighting them over there....

I found this article interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it is curious that these British citizens would head to Iraq to carry out suicide bombings for Al Qaeda rather than staying for operations in their British home. Second, I think it's notable that the trickle of western recruitment is broadening to a stream.
UP TO 150 Islamic radicals have travelled from Britain to Iraq to join up with a “British brigade” that has been established by Al-Qaeda leaders to fight coalition forces.

Senior security sources say leaders of the Iraqi insurgency have set up a “foreign legion” composed entirely of westerners to fight alongside the insurgents in the war against British and American forces. Some are preparing to carry out suicide attacks while others have received basic combat training for attacks on western troops The so-called “British brigade” is said to be operating under the direct command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Members of the unit are thought to be in the Sunni triangle, a combat zone and Al-Qaeda hotbed west of Baghdad.



The flow of young Muslim men from western Europe to Iraq has increased dramatically in the past two years. The “pipeline” of suspected terrorists is being fuelled by growing resentment about American and British policy and scandals such as the mistreatment of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A senior security source, confirming that between 120 and 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq, said there was concern that the flow was increasing: “The really worrying thing is that this has become a movement that people believe in. It’s not simply a matter of them joining a terrorist organisation.”


(I do wonder about the accuracy of the 150 number (estimate or known?), and we have no idea how many might have been recruited and stayed in Britain.)

2 Comments:

  • Don't you think this has been an issue from the outset? The number of actual 'westerners' gathered up in the initial Afghanistan/Pakistan sweep is an indicator?
    Also the 'western' citizens of Middle Eastern background have apparently ben active in their adopted countries as well as in the ME?
    Maybe its just not coming up on the radar in the States. It has been elsewhere.

    By Blogger Cartledge, at 5:20 PM  

  • Well, the Middle Eastern population in the US is generally not very radical. There are exceptions, but generally, the muslim population is pretty moderate.

    We don't have the ghettos of N. Africans like France, the guestworkers with reduced rights and discrimination og Germany, or the vast political refugees of Britain. So, the ground is not very fertile with huge numbers of disaffected youth.

    Again, there are extremists, but they've generally been pretty isolated and not in the geographic and ideological concentrations of Europe. So, we tend to develop alot more of the "lone nut" kind of people, not the organized groups working out of mosques. Course, we get those out of the non-arab population here as well, where people just go out and gun down 10-20 people.

    And, yeah, this has been an issue in Europe even before Iraq. I mean, 9-11 was developed in part by a group of guys working out of Hamburg.

    There's moderate support for the Palestinian cause in the US, fundraising and such, but after 9-11 almost all support for Al Qaeda's goals dissipated, again outside a few.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:58 PM  

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