Foreign Fighters in Iraq

• Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has become the center of activity for a number of terrorist groups, the most dangerous of which are made up of foreign Salafists. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (later Ansar al-Sunnah), and Islamic Army of Iraq are the most infamous of the terrorist groups that operate under Abu Musab Zarqawi's command and are responsible for most of the terrorist attacks in the country, including nearly all of the suicide bombings. At least 6 smaller terrorist groups are also active in Iraq.

• Iraq is not the center of terrorist activity, but rather one major battle front for al-Qaeda and its allies in their war against the West, with others including North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf, as well as Central, South, and Southeast Asia. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Indonesia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, and Sudan are also home to training camps, staging and support facilities, or internal conflicts involving al-Qaeda and other Salafist groups. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does at least as much to fuel Arab and Islamic anger as the fighting in Iraq, and al-Qaeda is easily able to capitalize on long-running political, economic, and social problems throughout the Arab and Islamic world.

• While not the center, Iraq has become a major staging area for al-Qaeda and currently presents the greatest possibility of a victory for al-Qaeda in that the network could succeed in destabilizing a major state and drive it towards a full-scale civil war. They have at least partially displaced the fighting in Iraq from the actual Iraqis and are certainly responsible for the violent drive away from political competition and accomodation. Their goal is to create a civil war inside Iraq that would negate the possibility of establishing a secular or moderate government and trigger a broader sectarian conflict throughout the Gulf states. On a broader level, they seek to hold Islam captive to their brutal, intolerant, and ruthlessly exclusionary ideology that would deprive it of any kind of future by forcing it to conform to their utopian vision of a worldwide totalitarian theocracy.

• Intelligence analysis corroborated by information from Islamist chat rooms and websites, indicates that these terrorists have established training camps in the mountains of northern Iraq and the country's western desert along the Syrian border. There also credible reports of training camps and indoctrination centers inside Iraq that have enabled these groups to continue to create the daily carnage that serves as one of the primary causes of waning domestic support for the war inside the United States.

• Many analysts have assumed that foreign fighters form the bulk of these terrorist groups and that they include a large Saudi presence, with one of Israeli report claiming that 61% of the foreign fighters killed in Iraq and 70% of the suicide bombers were Saudi nationals. While there are valuable insights in these studies, it is important to note that both intelligence assessments and detention patterns indicate that the largest component of the insurgency is that of Iraqi nationals. While no one can claim with certainty the number of active and part-time insurgents, paid agents, and sympathizers, the trends to date indicate that the number of foreign fighters is lower than 10% and may be as low as 4-6%, with Saudi nationals making up between 1-2% of the fighters currently operating in the country.

Anatomy of the Insurgency

• The main source of the violence in Iraq is a deep-seated Sunni-Shi'ite rift.

• 3 polls taken by Iraqi and foreign pollsters indicate that up to 85% of the respondents in the Sunni areas express support for the insurgency, while polls taken by the US and Iraqi governments indicate that no more than 30-40% of the Sunnis surveyed expressed much confidence that the insurgency would improve conditions in the country and 30-35% having "no confidence" in the insurgents' ability to effect change. A significant number also expressed skepticism about the insurgents' methods and denounced violence as a means of achieving political objectives.

• No one knows how many foreign fighters are in Iraq or the current trend. The US believes that Zarqawi commands ~1,000 and that number has increased since the January elections. They also note that a significant portion have been killed or captured and that the current cadres are less sophisticated and well-trained as their predecessors.

• The Saudi national security assessment believes that there are ~3,000 foreign fighters in Iraq. This figure, like the breakdown by nationalities, are rounded estimates based on reports by Saudi and other intelligence services, particularly on the interrogations of hundreds of captured terrorists and a comprehensive analysis of insurgent activities that includes interviews and analysis of activities by Saudi and non-Saudi terrorists. Also included were intelligence reports prepared by other Arab governments that not only provided the terrorists' names but also valuable information on the support networks they used to enter Iraq and conduct their activities.

• The conclusion is ~12% of foreign fighters (~350) or 1.2% of ~3,000 foreign insurgents. Algerians make up the largest foreign contingent (600) at 20%, then Syrians (550, 18%), Yemenis (500, 17%), Egyptians (400, 13%), and foreign fighters from other states (150, 5%).

• That there are 3,000 foreign fighters in Iraq is cause for alarm, because they play a large role in the most violent attacks and efforts to provoke a sectarian civil war. They are also a threat because their actions lend publicity and credibility to Osama bin Laden among the angry and alienated the Islamic world and because many are likely to survive and serve as a source of violence and extremism in other countries.

• The number of foreign insurgents pales in comparison to the number of Iraqi insurgents. By all accounts, the insurgency is largely homegrown. The view of US experts, based on estimates emanating from Iraq, is that at least 90% of the insurgency is made up of Iraqis, in contrast to some allegations that the insurgency is being entirely fueled from abroad.

• Open source information cannot characterize the overall patterns of the Iraqi insurgency with any accuracy or assign precise numbers. Saudi intelligence assessments indicate that the main pillar of the insurgency is not the members of the former regime like the remnants of the Iraqi Republican Guard, although the Republican Guard is contributing technical and logistical expertise.

• By and large, the cannon fodder of the insurgency are members of extremely conservative families from Sunni tribal groups of Iraq. Saudi intelligence assessments that lead to this conclusion are due to the strong tribal ties that exist between Iraqi and Saudi families. Through these tribal links, a great deal of information about the insurgency has been sent back to Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned in March 2003 that Iraq would become a "Pandora's box," his information came from Iraqi tribal leaders with deep and long-standing connections to their Saudi counterparts.

• These tribal groups consist largely of military officers trained under Saddam Hussein and is well-funded. Some of the former Baathists who have joined the new Iraqi security forces are hoping for the failure of Iraqi democracy so that they can emerge as the solution to Iraq's national security problems. Other elements include former members of paramilitary organizations like the Saddam Fedayeen and the Quds Army in addition to former members of the old Iraqi regular army. Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein, such as former high-ranking military and intelligence officers, are reacting more to their loss of power and trying to prevent the emergence of a new Iraqi government rather than pursuing any real agenda for the future.

• If one talks about the sources of broad public support for the insurgency, Sunni nationalism is the strongest factor fueling the unrest. These nationalists include Iraqis who were dismissed from their military or civil service jobs after the fall of Saddam Hussein. They do not favor a restoration of Baathist rule but are very wary of a Shi'ite-led government, fears that have not been alleviated by the writing of the constitution because many felt that they had been marginalized in favor of the Shi'ites and the Kurds. Instead, they favor a Sunni-run state, want US forces out of Iraq as soon as possible, and are far less likely to target Iraqi civilians or take part in suicide bombings.

• Not everyone who joins the insurgency shares common political or ideological goals but are instead products of situational factors such as family situations, coercion, and material goals. In some cases, criminals have agreed to join in for pay. Young Iraqis participate for money or because they feel they have no longer have any meaningful purpose. Some Iraqis join or collaborate with the insurgency because they are unable to feed their families or the loss of friends or relatives to the fighting. Other civilians are driven to take up arms because they are fed up with the US-backed government's failure to provide basic security, running water, and electricity. The fact that many Iraqi Sunnis have no real idea of what they are fighting for, only what they are fighting against, gives al-Qaeda and others fighting to create a civil war added leverage.

• As the insurgency has progressed, the growing splits between Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ites, Arabs and other minorities, coupled with the steady loss or co-opting of the more secularized Sunni insurgents and the emergence of the Sunni clergy as a major political force has polarized younger Sunnis along religious lines. The fact that Salafist movements like al-Qaeda in Iraq have foreign leaders does not mean that they do not have significant numbers of Iraqis serving within them or that they do not rely on Iraqi sympathizers for support and safe areas.

• There are reports of clashes between al-Qaeda in Iraq and native Iraqi Sunni insurgents, but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, even the most extreme Sunni clerics who do sympathize with the insurgency are Hanafi Sunnis and do not hold to anything resembling Wahhabi Salafist views. However, the rise of Sunni nationalism does allow al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Salafist groups to exploit the "Sunni" aspect of the Sunni nationalism.

Saudi Foreign Fighters in Iraq

• While there are no precise numbers but Saudi authorities are deeply concerned both by the risk of civil war in Iraq and that Saudi terrorists trained in Iraq will become a new source of instability throughout the Gulf states. As a result, Saudi intelligence has made a major effort to estimate the number of Saudi infiltrators that move along the Saudi border or the far greater number that transit through countries like Syria.

• As of August 2005, ~352 Saudis have entered Iraq, 63 have been stopped at the Saudi border. 150 are thought to be active, 72 have been named in al-Qaeda rosters, 74 have been captured (20 in US and 3 in Kurdish custody), and 56 are presumed dead. Interrogations and other Saudi intelligence operations reveal that while these individuals do not come from a single geographic region but are generally employed and educated individuals from prominent conservative and middle class tribes in the South, Hejaz, and the Najd. The average age of these fighters is 17-25, though a few are older with families and children. Other foreign fighters coming from the Middle East and North Africa tend to be in their late 20s and 30s.

• As part of the crackdown on Saudis attempting to enter Iraq, Saudi authorities have captured and interrogated dozens of individuals returning from Iraq or attempting to cross the border. These individuals were questioned about their motives for joining the insurgency, with one important point being the number of foreign fighters who insisted that they were not terrorists prior to the Iraq War. Backing up this contention is the fact that 85% of those who were caught were not on any government watch list or among those al-Qaeda members known to Saudi authorities.

• The names of those Saudis who have died fighting in Iraq usually appear on al-Qaeda websites as martyrs and according to interviews with the families dead Saudi fighters the majority of them were driven to extremism by the Iraq war itself.

• Most Saudi fighters in Iraq were motivated by revulsion at the idea of an Arab state being occupied by the US. These feelings were intensified by images of the occupation seen on satellite TV and the Internet, many of which came from sources intensely anti-war or anti-American that repeated or manipulated the "worst case" images. The catalyst most often cited is Abu Ghraib, though images from Guantanamo Bay also fed into the pathology. Some recognized the name of a friend or relative posted on a website and felt compelled to join the cause to avenge them. These factors were combined with repeated incitement by Wahhabi clerics during Friday prayers and helped to solidify their views within a religious context.

• In one case, a 24 year-old student from a prominent Saudi tribe who had no previous affiliation with terrorists explained that he was motivated after the US invasion to join the jihad by stories he saw in the Arab press and the forceful rhetoric of a mid-level al-Qaeda cleric. This cleric then introduced him and 3 other prospective jihadis to a Yemeni al-Qaeda member who subjected them to several weeks of ideological indoctrination before taking them to Syria and escorting them to the Iraqi border where they met their Iraqi facilitators. There they were assigned to a Saudi brigade (kateebat) and the student was assigned to take part in a suicide bombing. Having second thoughts, he fled back to Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested in January 2004. The al-Qaeda cleric who recruited him was also brought up on terrorism charges and is expected to serve a long jail term, while the Yemeni al-Qaeda member was killed in a December 2004 during a failed attack on the Saudi Interior Ministry.

• There are other similar stories regarding young men who were enticed by Wahhabi clerics into taking up arms in Iraq, many of whom were instructed to carry out suicide bombings and never returned home as a result. Interrogations of the ~150 Saudis suspected of planning to join the Iraqi insurgency indicate they were heeding the calls of Wahhabi clerics and lay activists to drive the infidels from the Middle East. The Saudi government has sought to limit such calls to arms that inevitably feed Salafist extremists at the expense of more moderate interpretations of Islam. King Abdullah has issued a strong new directive that holds that those who conceal the knowledge of terrorist activities as being as guilty as the terrorists themselves. However, many religious leaders and figures throughout the Arab world have issued fatwas stating that jihad in Iraq is justified under the Koranic principles of defensive jihad. In October 2004, several Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa declaring it the duty of every Muslim to go fight in Iraq.

• On June 20, 2005 the Saudi government issued a wanted list of 36 al-Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom (all but 1 of those on the previous list had been killed by al-Qaeda, so these individuals were considered low-level operatives and hence less dangerous). Following the crackdown in the Kingdom, as many as 21 of these al-Qaeda members fled to Iraq and Interior Minister Prince Nayef commented that when they returned they would be even tougher than those who had fought in Afghanistan. According to Prince Turki al-Faisal, ~150 Saudis were currently operating in Iraq.

• Unlike foreign fighters from poorer countries like Egypt and Yemen, Saudis entering Iraq often brought money with them to support the cause, arriving with personal funds between $10-15,000. Saudis are the most sought after foreign fighters not only for their cash contributions but also because of the media attention that their deaths as "martyrs" bring to the insurgency, thereby serving as a powerful recruiting tool. Because of Saudi Arabia's wealth and better-developed press, there also tend to be far more coverage of Saudi deaths in Iraq than those from poorer countries. In contrast, if an Egyptian or Algerian fighter dies in Iraq, it is unlikely that anyone in their home country will ever learn of it. From interrogations of Saudi insurgents, when an Algerian takes part in a suicide bombing, the insurgency rarely has a means of contacting their family. Saudis, however, always provide contact information and a well-developed system is in place for recording and disseminating information about any suicide bombings carried out by Saudis.

Entry Into Iraq

• The Saudi government has had some success in its efforts to seal the border between the Kingdom and Iraq, but several countries provide easy transit for Saudi and other foreign fighters and have been accused of not doing enough to prevent foreign fighters from entering by Iraqi officials.

Syria

• Syria is clearly the largest problem, but preventing insurgents from crossing its 380-mile border with Iraq is daunting. According to the Tourism Minister, Syria is one of the largest tourist destinations in the Middle East, with 3,100,000 tourists visiting in 2004 and the number of Saudis visiting in the first 7 months of 2005 increasing from 230,000 in 2004 to 270,000. Separating the legitimate tourists from foreign fighters is nearly impossible and Saudi fighters have taken advantage of this fact.

• Most fighters entering Iraq from Syria do so at a point just south of the northern Kurdish areas that are populated by nomadic Sunni Arab tribes or due east from Dair al-Zawhr into al-Anbar province. Crossing near the southern portion of the border, which is mainly desert and tightly controlled by US and Syrian forces, is rarely done. The crossing from Dair al-Zawhr is the preferred route because the majority of the inhabitants on both sides of the border are fairly sympathetic to the insurgency, the scattering of villages along the border provinces allows ample opportunity for covert movement, and the constant insurgent attacks in the area are believed to keep US and Iraqi forces occupied. As such, the key transit point here for both Saudis and other foreign fighters is the Bab al-Waleed crossing.

• Even if Syria had the political will to seal the border, it lacks sufficient resources to do so (Saudi Arabia has spent $1,200,000,000 since 2003 to secure its own border with Iraq). As a result, it relies heavily on screening those who enter the country. A problem with this method is the difficulty of establishing proof of residence in Syria or verifying hotel reservations and that there are no visa requirements for Saudis to enter the country. Syria does maintain a database of suspected terrorists and several dozen Saudis have been captured at the border, but pressuring Syria to improve border security could be both unrealistic and politically sensitive.

• An April 2003 report by Italian investigators described Syria as the "hub" for the relocation of Zarqawi's group into Iraq. According to the Italian report, transcripts of wiretapped conversations among arrested suspects and others paint a detailed picture of overseers based in Syria coordinating the movement of both fighters and money between Europe and Iraq.

• There are also those who claim that Syria has been too forceful in their crackdown of Saudis in Iraq. There have been recent reports that Syria has engaged in abusing, beating, and robbing Saudi tourists under the pretext of preventing infiltration, a charge that Syria denies. According to reports published in the state-run Saudi paper al-Watan, released prisoners alleged that Syrian authorities arbitrarily arrested Saudis on the grounds that they were planning to infiltrate Iraq. The former detainees maintained they were targeted for arrest in Syria without cause and claimed that the Saudi authorities would have continued to hold them when they returned to the Kingdom had they been terrorists. Syrian Tourism Minister Saadallah Agha Kalaa denied these accounts, but in the murky world of Syrian intelligence it is very difficult to discern the truth. Suffice it to say that the problem of successfully halting the traffic of Saudis through Syria into Iraq is overwhelmingly difficult, politically charged, and operationally difficult.

Iran

• Iraq also shares a long and a relatively unguarded border with Iran, but as a non-Sunni, non-Arab country, few Saudi fighters use it as a point of entry. Still, Saudi authorities have captured a handful of jihadis who have entered Iraq from Iran and 4 were apprehended while returning to the Kingdom from Iran through the UAE. Iran is also a major source of funding and logistics for Iraqi Shi'ite groups (mainly SCIRI) and is suspected of arming and training ~40,000 fighters with the goal of establishing a Khomeinist theocracy in Iraq. Many of these Iraqi Shi'ites are former POWs captured during the Iraq-Iran War.

The Saudi Response

• The Saudi government has made sealing its border with Iraq a priority. As of 2005, this goal has largely been achieved and its troops have been given the power to apprehend and detain anyone attempting to cross. By the end of 2005, the Saudi government had spent $850,000,000 on border security, a number that has risen to $1,200,000,000 by July 2005. All security branches are involved in this endeavor, including the National Guard, specialized army units, border and security guards, drug enforcement agents, and custom officers.

• Since the spring of 2004, a comprehensive training program has been set up for officers involved in operations to monitor the borders and outlets of the Kingdom. While customs agents control the point of entry, the border guards, National Guard, and the regular army have expanded their forces and equipment across the Kingdom's borders covering 9 regions, 35 departments, and 275 centers. Security units patrol around the clock, strict security measures have been imposed around all outlets, and massive sandbag obstacles have been laid to prevent the movement of fighters along the Saudi-Iraqi border.

• The use of trained police dogs was implemented to uncover drug-smuggling activities but have also been effective in detecting hidden individuals. The dogs are especially useful in locating individuals hiding along the border that are the preferred route for smugglers and drug trackers. Saudi Major General Abdul Rahman al-Ibrahim, the commander of the Eastern Province border guards, has said that authorities have stepped up efforts to maintain security along those portions of the border. The preferred infiltration route from Iraq back into the Kingdom is through the Northern Frontier Province. The Saudi Interior Ministry has 204 trained canine teams working the borders, half of whom have been reassigned to the Iraqi border.

• The use of modern methods for monitoring border movements also includes special planes supplied by the Saudi Air Force as well as sophisticated radar and night vision equipment furnished by the Ministry of Defense. As of December 2004, there are 34 stationary and 38 mobile units installed in the region with 19 additional stationary units in the process of being set up.

• There has been a systematic construction program including building sand barricades to prevent vehicles from crossing directly over the border. Another barricade has been constructed approximately 6 miles inland in an effort to discourage movement in the more isolated desert regions with 35,000 troops from the National Guard, the Interior Ministry, and various military services under the Ministry of Defense working to seal the borders.

• Infiltration by sea is of little risk as US and British forces control both large and small Iraqi ports.

• This massive effort was undetaken with little or no assistance from the Iraqi side. Prince Turki al-Faisal has stated that the problem is that on the Iraqi side there are no security measures to help curb Iraqis, drug smugglers, criminals, and thieves from entering the Kingdom. In the last 6 months, Saudi authorities have arrested 682 Iraqi intruders and smugglers and stopped 63 Saudis from heading north thanks to the use of hi-tech cameras placed along the border.

• Border patrols have confiscated a large number of explosives entering the Kingdom, exposing an extensive network engaged in the manufacture and smuggling of explosives to al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and other neighboring states. According to the Saudi General Security Service, recent security operations have uncovered several arms caches for these materials, leading to a shortage of high-grade explosives for al-Qaeda members in the Kingdom. From 2000-2004, 14,800,000 ammunition pieces, 16,300 small arms, and 2,991 lbs. of weapons-grade explosives were seized.

• This success has come at the cost and the Interior Ministry has recently established a special section for the families of security officers who were either killed or wounded fighting terrorists along the border and elsewhere. According to Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the creation of this section reflects the Saudi royals' concern for the families of the officers who were killed or wounded in counter-terrorism operations.

• Terrorism requires money and supplies and the Saudi government, working in conjunction with the US and other governments, have adopted measures designed to curb access by terrorists to conventional financing resources. Unable to rely on mainstream financial institutions such as banks and charities, they have resorted to smuggling in conjunction with criminal syndicates. In many cases, al-Qaeda has provided drugs in return for money, arms, ammo, and logistical support such as document forgery and the transport or concealment of illicit substances. Sealing the smuggling routes has the added advantage of cutting off funds from the sale of drugs used to subsidize insurgent and terrorist activities. To date, the Saudis have shut down 27 known smuggling routes between the Kingdom and Iraq and the activity has been substantially curbed.

• There are certain financial realities that limit what can be done, with current projections being that Middle Eastern and African oil export revenues rising from $100,000,000,000 in 1998 to upwards of $500,000,000,000 in 2005, reaching or exceeding the former peak of $500,000,000,000 reached in 1980. According to Merrill Lynch, the capital controlled by wealthy Middle Easterners has risen 2003-2004 by 29% or $1,000,000,000,000, with some estimates projecting a further 9% from 2004-2009. According to some estimates, $500,000,000,000+ is still invested outside the region and thus not subject to monitoring or control by Saudi Arabia or other regional governments.

• Terrorism is not terribly expensive and many groups can cloak their identities under a host of religious or charitable covers or by exploiting "armchair extremism" throughout the Islamic world. No amount of Saudi, US, or international activity to limit fund transfers or activities like money laundering, is going to halt the substantial flow of money and weapons to terrorist groups. As long as religious extremism and Arab and Islamic anger act as a political and ideological force, enough private money will flow to allow such groups to continue to function and act. This is particularly true when, as in the case of Iraq, they can exploit significant popular sympathy and support.

• Saudi Arabia is attempting to deal directly with the religious and ideological aspects of the threat. On November 5, 2004, 26 Saudi clerics including Sheikh Salman al-Awdah and Sheikh Nasser al-Omar signed a fatwa calling on Iraqis to rise up and oppose the US that many young Saudis interpretted as a call to jihad. Calls such as this have led to attacks not only in Iraq but in other parts of the Kingdom as well.

• Over the last several years, Saudi authorities have cracked down on Wahhabi clerics who have encouraged terrorist activity in the Kingdom. Many have been relieved of their religious duties, sent to attend reeducation programs, and those who formerly traveled to rally support for terrorist groups have had their diplomatic status revoked. It is now illegal for a cleric not associated with the Senior Council of Ulema to issue a fatwa, with penalties and jail time for those who defy the order. As the announcement of this policy, no unauthorized fatwas have been issued. In a new twist, Majid Shabib al-Otaibi, who blames the Wahhabi clergy for the death of his son Muqrin, is suing the 26 Wahhabi clerics who called for jihad against the US.

Challenges

• No country can say that it is doing everything it can to fight terrorism or that it has learned and adopted the best methods for doing so. Iraq is only one part of the global struggle and it is clear that this struggle will require national and international action on a far more sophisticated scale for at least a decade.

• It is also clear that the primary struggle in Iraq is Iraqi and its outcome will be determined largely by whether the new Iraqi government can be inclusive and fair enough to win broad Sunni support and bring them into the political process. Outside powers can help, but even the most successful efforts pale in significance to the impact of internal Iraqi politics.

• Saudi infiltration into Iraq is a problem and Saudi Arabia needs to do more, but the Saudis are making major efforts to seal their border with Iraq, but more pressure needs to be put on Syria for that country to do the same. This is sensitive topic, but until it is done, it will be very difficult for the Saudis to stop the flow of their nationals into Iraq. And it is understood by all that these fighters upon their return to the Kingdom will pose a threat that may be greater than those who had trained in Afghanistan.

• Although the Saudi government has implemented measures to pursue renegade clerics and extremist lay activists who aid and encourage impressionable young men to resort to violence, it needs to implement even stricter monitoring systems and stronger penalties to discourage such practices.

Conclusions

1. Analysts and government officials in the US and Iraq have overstated the size of the foreign fighters, especially the Saudi contingent.

2. Saudi volunteers are only a small part of the foreign fighters.

3. If not for Saudi efforts over last 18 months, there would likely be hundreds more foreign fighters in Iraq today, not only Saudis but those from other states whose transports and activity had been funded by Saudis.

Dan's Commentary

I'll reinterate my strong respect for Cordesman, but I'll also reinterate my caveat stated at the beginning of this piece. To his credit, Cordesman is quite up-front about his sources being Saudi intelligence reports and analysis, but I am extremely skeptical of his co-author Nawaf Obaid, whose attempted exculpation of the Kingdom looked pretty silly in March 2002 and looks even sillier now more than 3 years later. One cannot help but wonder, were we to go back to 2001 or 2002, could we not find a wealth of Saudi intelligence data supporting the Kingdom's party line that the assassination campaign against Western nationals in the Kingdom or Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah's ludicrous claim back in May 2004 that Israel is sponsoring not only al-Qaeda in the Kingdom but also its London-based mouthpieces Saad al-Faqih and Mohammed al-Masari?

To put it simply, the Saudis have a credibility problem and the presence of Nawaf Obaid (who, for various reasons, I tend to regard as an unofficial agent of the Saudi government) in a report doesn't do much to placate my unease here. If what he says is true, it's certainly good news, but the Saudis have certainly attempted to downplay their problems in the past on the basis of history I feel a little leery about taking their statements at face value on this one.

Two other brief points:

1. Cordesman correctly notes that Iraq is a rather than the training grounds for al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups. He briefly touches on them, but I'd like to take the opportunity to specifically identify them now since I have in the past:

• The GSPC has bases and probably training camps of some kind in northern Mali.

• The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) training camps in Pakistan that are now serving as al-Qaeda's primary training grounds post-Taliban.

• The Caucasus-based Islamist groups led by Basayev presumably have at least some means of recruiting and training new fighters, though not much is known about where exactly they are if claims that the Pankisi Gorge has been cleaned out are accurate.

• The northern regions of Yemen likely serve as bases for al-Qaeda and its Yemeni affiliate groups, a point noted by both Scheuer and Schanzer in their respective summaries of al-Qaeda.

• Saudi Arabia also hosted (and still does?) makeshift al-Qaeda training facilities set up on private villas.

• There were/are al-Qaeda training camps set up in Sulawesi, Indonesia according to Spanish court documents.

• The island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines has long served as the primary training grounds for JI.

The reason I mention this is that those who are now so worried about al-Qaeda receiving urban warfare training would do well to also concern themselves with these other training grounds that serve as alternate sources of such training. That is, of course, if they're actually interested in stopping al-Qaeda and its allies from receiving such training rather than simply relying on any criticism that crosses their desk to criticize the war.

2. Cordesman places the Sources of Arab Outrage™ like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within their proper context. While they certainly serve as sources of popular anger, popular anger does not itself translate into people willing to serve as suicide bombers. It is the bloodthirsty holy men and the al-Qaeda recruiters who are responsible for turning angry young men into terrorists, with these events serving as the catalyst through which the former group are recruited by those who would transform them into the latter.