Americans in Iraq still struggling to define threat
WASHINGTON (AP) — There is a growing consensus among senior American officials that while Saddam Hussein loyalists remain a threat to the U.S. effort to stabilize Iraq, the most lethal enemy is now a shadowy, hard-to-define web of foreign terrorists and Islamic extremists.
L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator of Iraq, said Wednesday it is “increasingly apparent that a large part” of the recent violence aimed at Iraqis “comes from outside the country.”
But determining exactly who these foreign threats are and how they manage to coordinate with indigenous terrorist groups and remnants of the Saddam regime has proven a daunting task.
Even the most enduring category of enemy as defined by the U.S. military — the holdouts from the defeated Saddam regime — remain elusive and frequently effective in their attacks. Their homemade bombs, for example, are still killing and maiming American troops with regularity.
“There are offensive actions that can be taken against the bombmakers when we know where they are and how they are operating that can be partially successful,” Gen. John Abizaid told a House panel Wednesday. “I cannot give you 100 percent assurance that we’ve got the solution to the problem because the enemy knows that we are vulnerable in this regard.”
The Americans are even less sure what they are up against with regard to foreign fighters in Iraq.
Abizaid told the House Armed Services Committee that the United States has evidence that a Jordanian-born militant was behind this week’s devastating suicide bombings in Iraq. Other U.S. officials said later they could not elaborate because the evidence is still “being developed.”
The statement by Abizaid is the most direct assertion yet by a U.S. official that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is carrying through on a terrorist campaign inside Iraq, as described in a letter purportedly written by al-Zarqawi and intercepted by U.S. intelligence two months ago.
The letter outlined plans to attack Shiite religious sites to foment a civil war.
Abizaid also said terrorists have “gotten themselves established” in Iraq, and that al-Zarqawi in particular has made new links with members of the former Iraqi intelligence. Abizaid’s comments went beyond previous statements by U.S. officials about al-Zarqawi’s suspected involvement in the nearly simultaneous suicide bombings Tuesday in Baghdad and Karbala.
“The level of organization and the desire to cause casualties among innocent worshippers is a clear hallmark of the Zarqawi network and we have intelligence that ties Zarqawi to this attack,” Abizaid said.
Since midsummer, U.S. officials have struggled to understand who is behind the violence that initially was aimed mainly at American troops but recently has been directed more at Iraqi civilians.
U.S. and allied forces have chipped away at the leadership and financial underpinnings of the anti-occupation insurgency, which the military calls “former regime elements.” They have made much faster progress on that front since Saddam’s capture on Dec. 13.
But as that threat has weakened, other dangers have grown, chiefly from terrorist groups whose shape, scope and origins have been difficult for the Americans to define.
On a trip to Iraq last month, Abizaid quizzed numerous U.S. commanders about the nature of the threat in Baghdad and the highly volatile area west and north of the capital. He expressed his oft-stated view that public reports of large numbers of foreign terrorists entering Iraq are overstated.
The commanders on the ground generally agreed with that assessment.
But some commanders said they are worried most about what they call Islamic fundamentalists, whom they differentiate from terrorists, although both groups include foreigners.
During Abizaid’s trip last month to Iraq, one military official said the fundamentalists include followers of the Wahabbi sect of Islam, which is the main brand of the religion in Saudi Arabia, as well as mujahedeen forces, or Muslim guerrillas committed to a holy war against the West; and imams who preach anti-Western messages in Iraqi mosques.
As a separate category, the foreign terrorists are generally defined as including al-Qaida and Ansar al-Islam, an Iraqi Kurdish organization thought to be active in the dangerous area west and north of Baghdad.