U.S. officials have for months publicly promoted
the notion that foreign fighters and terrorists are playing a major
role in the anti-American insurgency in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq.
By blaming foreigners, U.S. authorities hope to
quash the idea that Iraqis are rising up against military occupation
and frame the conflict as part of the wider war on terror. However,
foreigners play a tiny role in Iraq's insurgency, many military experts
say.
In Fallujah, U.S. military leaders say around 90
percent of the 1,000 or more fighters battling the Marines are Iraqis.
To date, there have been no confirmed U.S. captures of foreign fighters
in Fallujah - although a handful of suspects have been arrested.
Those who have spent time inside Fallujah have described
a city consumed with the fight - fathers and sons fighting for the
local mujahedeen and wives and daughters cooking and caring for the
wounded.
"The whole city supports this jihad," said Houssam
Ali Ahmed, 53, a Fallujah resident who fled to Baghdad when his neighborhood
was caught in the fighting. "The people of Fallujah are fighting to
defend their homes. We are Muslim mujahedeen fighting a holy war."
Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. military commanders say
foreigners have an even smaller role in the insurgency.
In Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey has said foreigners
account for just 1 percent or so of guerrillas. Dempsey said his 1st
Armored Division detained just 50 to 75 foreign fighter suspects in
Baghdad over the past year, among a population of captured guerrillas
that reached 2,000.
...
Marines have captured at least one foreigner in Fallujah, a Sudanese
man, said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, a Marine battalion commander. Five
foreign passport holders have been detained in the city, a top military
official said. Byrne said he was unsure whether any had fought in the
uprising.
But foreign participation appears far lower than
U.S. occupation officials like chief spokesman Dan Senor have suggested.
Senor has portrayed the battle of Fallujah as one in which foreign
fighters and terrorists were holding the city's "silent majority" hostage.
...
One top U.S. military official - who had publicly blamed foreign fighters
for a large measure of the revolt - conceded privately that the U.S.
military may never find out whether many foreigners had fought in Fallujah.
Many may have escaped, he said.
Previous U.S. claims that foreigners were behind
attacks in Iraq have turned out to be shaky.
In March, after suicide bombers killed up to 271
people during the Shiite holiday of Ashoura, U.S. and Iraqi leaders
quickly blamed foreign terrorists - fingering al-Zarqawi as the chief
suspect. Officials said 10 foreigners had been arrested, five of whom
were released, and five of whom later turned out to be Iraqis.
Other suicide bombings, including two in February
that killed almost 100 police and army recruits, were initially blamed
on foreign groups. Subsequent evidence suggested Iraqis were behind
the attacks.
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