Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Report attacks 'myth' of foreign fighters

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Report attacks 'myth' of foreign fighters: "Friday September 23, 2005
The Guardian

The US and the Iraqi government have overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, 'feeding the myth' that they are the backbone of the insurgency, an American thinktank says in a new report.

Foreign militants - mainly from Algeria, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia - account for less than 10% of the estimated 30,000 insurgents, according to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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The report says the presence of foreign fighters is cause for alarm 'particularly because they play so large a role in the most violent bombings and in the efforts to provoke a major and intense civil war'. The CSIS disputes reports that Saudis account for most of the foreign insurgents and says best estimates suggest Algerians are the largest group (20%), followed by Syrians (18%), Yemenis (17%), Sudanese (15%), Egyptians (13%), Saudis (12%) and those from other states (5%). British intelligence estimate the number of British jihadists at about 100.

The CSIS report says: 'The vast majority of Saudi militants who have entered Iraq were not terrorist sympathisers before the war; and were radicalised almost exclusively by the coalition invasion.'"