Posted on 02/19/2007 10:41:33 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
TETOUAN, Morocco -- In Arab world, this hilly North African city is as far as you can get from Iraq. But for many young men here, call to join what they view as a holy war resonates loudly across the 3,000-mile divide.
Two dozen men from Tetouan and nearby towns in Rif Mountains have traveled to Iraq in the past 18 months to volunteer as fighters or suicide bombers, according to local residents and officials. Moroccan authorities said the men were recruited by international terrorist networks affiliated with al-Qaeda that have deepened their roots in North Africa since invasion of Iraq four years ago.
To stanch the flow, U.S. intelligence and military officials have tried to trace the fighters' steps. On the basis of DNA evidence recovered from the scenes of suicide attacks, as well as other clues, officials have confirmed that at least two bombers came from Tetouan, a city of more than 320,000 across the Strait of Gibraltar from southern Spain.
One of them, Abdelmonaim el-Amrani, 22-year-old laborer, abandoned his wife and infant child in Tetouan to go to Iraq. On March 6, 2006, before sunset, he drove red Volkswagen Passat stuffed with explosives into a funeral tent in village near Baqubah, Iraq, according to witnesses. Six people were reported killed and 27 injured. It was months before Amrani's family in Tetouan learned of his fate from Moroccan police.
Foreign fighters in Iraq account for only small percentage of the combatants attacking U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies. U.S. military officials and independent analysts peg the number at no more than few thousand. But as the war drags on, it continues to serve as a powerful rallying tool for radical Islamic networks around the world that have developed recruiting pipelines as far afield as Europe and Southeast Asia.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Iraq is a magnet for people that just plain need killing. Better there than here.
That's correct. It's far better to strike the terrorists preemptively with our Marines than for them attacking innocent civilians in the States.
This is sure to improve the gene pool of the Rif Region.
In the words (almost) of Rawhide:
Darwin up; move'm out!
Head'm off, reign'm in, mow'm down!
It's no farther than France, Spain, Britain, Canada, California....
Although there's no way to tell, the Americans have killed hundred of thousands of Iraqi insurgents since 2003.
So obviously, they're getting reinforcements elsewhere in the Middle East to keep up the offensive for the next two years.
Talk about your dirty jobs....
L
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