Returning Iraqi jihadists threaten Europe

[ECH1969]

They are highly motivated, battlehardened, mobile -- and therefore dangerous. And the return of Europe’s jihadists from Iraq is giving the continent’s intelligence services nightmares.

As far back as October 2005, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Soulagh warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war there. According to Soulagh, by autumn 2005 several hundred militant fighters had already left for home.

Baltazar Garzon, the Spanish judge who has led inquiries into Al-Qaeda in Spain, said on Tuesday there were indications that large numbers of veterans of the Iraqi jihad were returning to Europe.

Claude Moniquet, director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, estimates there are “several hundred” former fighters from Iraq in western Europe and says they are “potentially very dangerous”.

http://www.biz-day.com/read/general_news/14_may_06/fqfvg-c/returning_iraqi_jihadists_threaten_europe.htm

[pooja]

1. TRAINING UNDER IRAQ GOVT

this war has gone so well.... training ground for terrorists... early grave for many innocents

[AlamoDemoc]

2. The saying goes: "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter"

[Jim Sagle]

7. Liberating Europeans from what? Their lives?

:wtf:

[One Honest Guy]

10. I am sure Bosnians and Kosovars would disagree.

Seeing how Europeans allowed their christian neighbors (Croats and Serbs) to slaughter them en masse during 1990s. Bosnians and Kosovars are Muslim, as you probably already know.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. Thanks George. N/T

[tocqueville]

4. it doesn't make sense....

first

the letter is old and the source less reliable (Iraqui interior minister)

second

why open a second front in Europe, when the jihadist are needed to keep the pressure on US troops in Iraq, specially in the eventuality of a strike against Iran... ?

[ECH1969]

6. The insurgecy has an endless supply foreign fighters

coming from Saudi Arabia and Syria and other Arab states. al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't trust European jihadists anyway and supposedly worry they are plants.

[Cocoa]

5. fighting them there...

[bemildred]

8. Yep, them Yurpean police definitely need bigger budgets ... nt

[pocket]

9. scare-mongering is not uniquely American

Time to grant the police more powers in Europe!

[NJmaverick]

11. I guess the repukes were right after all

The war in Iraq is about terrorism. Unfortunately the GOP is on the side of the terrorists.