US military blames most Iraq terror on foreign fighters

Mar 17, 2008, 11:57 GMT

Baghdad - A senior US military official blamed 90 per cent of suicide bombings in Iraq on foreign fighters recruited by the al- Qaeda terrorist network, local media said Monday.

Much of the violence in Iraq 'is carried out by al-Qaeda foreign fighters,' Rear Admiral Gregory J Smith, the chief of the multinational forces' public affairs division, was quoted as saying by the Voices of Iraq news agency.

At a press conference Sunday evening, Admiral Smith revealed the result of a survey based on interviews with 48 detained foreign fighters.

The survey showed that those fighters were unmarried males whose average age was 22. They have had no previous military experience unless they came from countries with mandatory military service.

Those fighters had originally done low-paying jobs, such as taxi- driving or construction work.

The survey also showed that the fighters came from lower- and middle-class, big-sized family background.

'They (fighters) wanted to be influential; they did not tell their families they were going to Iraq for fighting for fear that that their request would be rejected,' Smith said.

Indoctrination of those youths began at local mosques in their countries of origin where video films about Iraq were shown, many of them from al-Jazeera television, Smith said.

'Most of the terrorists flew to Damascus and from there went off to Iraq by land,' Smith explained.

Some 40 per cent of foreign fighters come from Saudi Arabia while about 41 per cent of them are from North African countries.

Smith said the number of fighters crossing into Iraq dropped from a rate of about 120 per month in mid-2007 to between 40 and 50 fighters per month this year.

The drop is attributed to improved capabilities of Multinational and Iraqi forces, entry visa restrictions and tighter border and airport control as well as improving awareness in countries where terror recruits come from, Smith said.