Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Hoplite
"So let me get this straight - Al Qaeda, who has supposedly been co-located with our forces in Bosnia since 1996 and Kosovo and Albania since 1999, is sending fighters and equipment from the Balkans, where attacking US forces would be easy for them, to Iraq, where they are as fish out of water due to cultural and linguistic differences with the locals."

I think that if that is true, the AQ members would be ethnically Arab or at least the majority of them...namely from the ranks of the Mujahideen who came over in the '90s. Again, if that is true. In other words, the cultural and linguistic difference wouldn't matter relatively much and I am not saying that Arabs are all the same.
25 posted on 01/18/2004 3:35:01 PM PST by Jacob Kell
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]


To: Jacob Kell
The majority of the Mujaahadeen in Bosnia were affiliated with Iran, and we took steps to address their influence during and after the Dayton process.

Needless to say, Iranians will spare no effort pointing out that they are not arabs, and their past bloody episodes involving the Iraqis and the Osama sponsored Taleban tend go against their actively partaking in any guerilla activities directed against us in Iraq. They appear to me instead to be waging a campaign of Mullacide, attempting to gain control of the clergy through which they can apply political leverage.

This isn't to say they're not enjoying our troubles there, but I have yet to see strong evidence of either Al Qaeda or Iranian influence amongst the Baathist Fedayeen, (as opposed to Ansar al-Islam, which has ties to pretty much everybody we'd like to see dead and buried, but, as a Wahabbist organization dependent upon Shiite Iran for its supplies, exists to provide leverage against the Kurds more than anything else and is a dead end as far as exerting real control in Iraq.)

I would note that our security in the Balkans is no worse nor better than it is anywhere else by virtue of our actions - it is better because the locals aren't either out to kill us or supporting those who are, as was the case in Aidid's corner of Somalia, or is still the case in large parts of Afghanistan and Iraq.

28 posted on 01/18/2004 4:55:42 PM PST by Hoplite
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson