Iraq invasion radicalised Saudi fighters

RIYADH, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Saudi fighters who joined the insurgency in Iraq showed few signs of militancy before the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, according to a detailed study based on Saudi intelligence reports.

Most were motivated by "revulsion at the idea of an Arab land being occupied by a non-Arab country".

The study by Middle East analyst Anthony Cordesman and Saudi security adviser Nawaf Obaid may offer further fuel to critics who say that instead of weakening al Qaeda, the 2003 invasion of Iraq brought fresh recruits to Osama bin Laden's network.

It said Saudi Arabia had interrogated dozens of Saudi militants who either returned from Iraq or were caught at the border. "One important point was the number who insisted that they were not militants before the Iraq war," it said.

"The vast majority of Saudi militants who entered Iraq were not terrorist sympathisers before the war, and were radicalised almost exclusively by the coalition invasion," the study said.

"revulsion at the idea of an Arab land being occupied by a non-Arab country" I am interested in how these areas became "Arab land". I understand that indigenous populations were living there before the "Arabs" came riding out of the Arabian peninsula to rape and pillage in the name of Allah. Perhaps we should talk to the Chaladees in Iraq about whose land in is (or was).

The implication is that the "Arab land" will never be occupied by another nationality from here on out.

BS story.

Another "tale" from the leftist I wish it were so list.

1. The Saudis do little of the fighting, they do the financing and are the players behind the scene in Iraq. Today they play a minor role in the actual fighting.

2. The writer of this article must have forgotten who Bin Laden is, or where he is from? Saudi involvement in terror (Look at the list of names and origin of the 9-11 terrorists) based on their Wahabist belief is NOTHING new. They have been exporting terror since the early 80s but their government is cracking down on it today since it threatens their own existence.

3. The writer over looks one aspect that people have been trying to explain for FOUR (4) years now. We need to bring the war to them, that is exactly what we did. It's better to fight in the streets of Baghdad than New York. We have created a new "killing fields" in the Middle East by choice and design. Let them come!

This is just more of "It's Bush's fault." Basically if you cut the chase the bottom line is that the author is saying: “Bush is causing the radical Islamic elements to polarize against us”. Yea, right, they loved us in the past. Achille Laura, US embassies, Kohbar towers, USS Cole, WTC 1993, WTC 2001, Madrid, London, Van Gogh, Russian train bombing, Chechen presidential assassination, Moscow theater, Beslan, two Russian hijacked planes flown into the ground in 2003…….. I feel the love!

These people are in a war against anyone who is not like them. Even the secular “intellectual” in Europe who thinks that silly religious wars are beneath his superior world view is a target. In fact, he’s not even a person of the book which a Christian is. This person is by definition an “infidel” not worthy of living. Bush didn’t polarize these people against us. Bush didn’t make them hate us. Bush didn’t start a war between us. Bush just helped make it clear that we were already in a state of war against them. He unlike his predecessor who ignored and downplayed the threat, allocated resources to fight an enemy set on our destruction.

Red6

Good retort!

Of course had America never invaded Iraq, peace would exist between Americans and Islamowhacks?

The fact appears to be that the biggest fear the Iraqis have is not that the Americans are in their country but that the Americans will leave their country too soon.

Most were motivated by "revulsion at the idea of an Arab land being occupied by a non-Arab country".

This is the biggest BS line of them all. Did they have a problem when the Ottoman Turks (a non-Arab country) occupied Iraq and Arabia for all those years? No, in fact, it is a central tenent of Bin Laden and his gang that they want a restoration of the Caliphate in Istanbul and a return to the Caliphate rule over all the Middle East.

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