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<DIV align=left><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size=2><I>Published on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 by <A
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-fighters16nov16,1,4015301.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage"
target=_new>Los Angeles Times
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<DIV align=left><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=5><!-- #BeginEditable "Header" --><STRONG>Few Foreigners Among
Insurgents</STRONG><FONT size=3><BR><STRONG>Judging from fighters captured
in Fallouja, all but about 5% are Iraqi, U.S. officials
say.<BR></STRONG><FONT face=Verdana size=2><A
href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-23.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-23.htm</A></FONT></FONT><!-- #EndEditable --></FONT></DIV></TD></TR>
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<DIV align=left><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2><B><!-- #BeginEditable "author" -->by John Hendren <!-- #EndEditable --></B></FONT></DIV></TD></TR>
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<P>CAMP FALLOUJA, Iraq — The battle for the city of Fallouja is giving
U.S. military commanders some insight into this country's insurgency,
painting a portrait of a home-grown uprising dominated by Iraqis, not
foreign fighters.
<P>Of the more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who were
captured in intense fighting in the center of the insurgency over the last
week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, Gen. George W. Casey, the
top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said Monday.
<P>There was evidence that an organized force of foreign fighters was
present. One dead guerrilla bore Syrian identification. A number of
insurgents believed to be foreigners wore similar black "uniforms," each
with black flak vests, webbed gear and weapons superior to those of their
Iraqi allies.
<P>But despite an intense focus on the network of Jordanian-born militant
Abu Musab Zarqawi by U.S. and Iraqi officials, who have insisted that most
Iraqis support the country's interim government, American commanders said
their best estimates of the proportion of foreigners among their enemies
is about 5%.
<P>The overwhelming majority of insurgents, several senior commanders
said, are drawn from the tens of thousands of former government employees
whose sympathies lie with the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein, unemployed
"criminals" who find work laying roadside bombs for about $500 each and
Iraqi religious extremists.
<P>"Over time, it's the former regime elements that are the threat," said
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who joined
Casey for a visit to bases in Baghdad and outside Fallouja before meeting
with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
<P>Before the battle, U.S. officials frequently stressed the role of
foreign fighters in Fallouja. Last week, as the battle got underway, Myers
told reporters that the city was "a major safe haven for former regime
elements and foreign fighters, in particular Zarqawi and his folks."
<P>It was not clear how many foreign fighters might have slipped out of
Fallouja before the U.S. military began its assault early last week and
how many may still be fighting in the southern neighborhoods of the city,
where clashes continue.
<P>A loose coalition of foreign and domestic fighters has shown few signs
of a centralized command, said senior American defense officials. The
Iraqi government and the U.S. military telegraphed the Fallouja offensive
with calls for civilians to leave the guerrilla stronghold. But despite
those early warnings, the insurgents failed to cut off military supply
routes and to reinforce isolated fighters, Myers said.
<P>"There is not someone in charge," Casey said. "There's collaboration
between the Islamic extremists, between the foreign fighters and between
the former regime elements. And it's a marriage of convenience."
<P>U.S. forces also have found large caches of arms in Fallouja containing
a wide variety of weapons, including car bombs ready to be deployed, bomb
factories and heavy weapons, scattered among houses, businesses and other
buildings.
<P>Commanders cautioned that identifying foreign militants is no exact
science. Of the 3,000 fighters that some officials believe were holed up
in the city at the dawn of the battle, by U.S. estimates at least 1,600
are dead. However, estimates of the death toll among insurgents have
varied widely; many bodies remain hidden in rubble or have not yet been
recovered in the streets.
<P>Most of the insurgents "sanitized" themselves, officials said, removing
identification and clues to their nationality.
<P>"It's hard to tell," Casey said. American, Iraqi and British troops
"are resorting to looking at the Korans in their back pocket and trying to
figure out where it was published to try to get some sense of
nationality."
<P>Allawi acknowledged in an interview Monday that the insurgents were
largely made up of his countrymen, but continued to assert that foreign
fighters had often been responsible for suicide car bombings and other
spectacular attacks that he said were designed to derail elections
scheduled for January.
<P>"We don't have exact numbers and exact figures, but always the foreign
elements, terrorists, are used for something else" than the tasks chosen
for Iraqi insurgents, Allawi said, citing car bombings in particular. "The
terrorists are trying to hurt the multinational force and us, to disrupt
the police, to disrupt the army, the national guard."
<P>He called those assaults a national "campaign of intimidation."
<P>Allawi has firsthand knowledge of that campaign. Three members of his
family were recently kidnapped by insurgents. The two female relatives
were released Sunday, Iraqi officials confirmed, but a male cousin
remained in insurgent hands.
<P>"The insurgents will kidnap family members, they will murder government
officials. They will murder police. We have found that some of the most
effective leaders in the national guard or the Iraqi police are murdered
or assassinated," said Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commander of the 1st
Marine Division. "I think we're seeing right now the last stand of the
real hard-liners."
<P>The insurgents' goal, added Casey, is to keep minority Sunni Muslims —
many of whom sympathize with Saddam Hussein, their former Sunni president
— from participating in the January election process, undermining its
legitimacy.
<P>"They've had to go to the intimidation to keep the Sunni from
participating in the political process, because they were losing," Casey
said.
<P>U.S. and Iraqi strategists plan to respond by supplementing Iraqi
police with Iraqi national guard or army troops, possibly supported by
U.S. forces.
<P>The foreign fighters that have joined the insurgency appear to have
largely crossed through Syria, military officials said. A small number of
Syrians have been captured, along with two Moroccans caught on the first
night of the offensive last week. A campaign of intimidation has prompted
Iraqi border guards to abandon their posts, U.S. defense officials said.
<P>Iraqi government and American authorities alike blame the Syrian
government.
<P>"It's hard to believe Syria doesn't know it's going on," Myers said.
<P>"Whether or not they're supporting it is another question. That said,
you could say if Syria wanted to stop it they could stop it, or stop it
partially."
<P>At the urging of U.S. forces, the Iraqi government shut down the border
crossing to Syria at the western Iraqi city of Qusaybah and allowed only
commercial vehicles to pass at one Syrian crossing and one Jordanian site,
Natonski said. Men of fighting age have not been allowed to cross, he
added.
<P align=center>© 2004 Los Angeles Times</P>
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