Posted on 05/19/2006 11:10:30 AM PDT by mojito
PARIS (Agence France-Presse) -- They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile -- and therefore, dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the Continent's intelligence services nightmares.
As far back as October, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war.
Mr. Jabr said several hundred militant fighters had left for home by last fall.
Baltazar Garzon, a Spanish judge who has led inquiries into al Qaeda in Spain, said in an interview last week that there were indications that large numbers of veterans of the Iraqi jihad were returning to Europe.
"I cannot say how many cases we are talking about, but it is a question of logic. Up until now, inquiries were focused on volunteers traveling to Iraq. Now we are beginning to get indications that they have begun to return," he said.
"Infrastructures are being put in place to accommodate them," added the judge, who spoke from the French city of Lyon, where he was attending an Interpol meeting.
In the past three years, hundreds of jihadist volunteers from almost every country in Europe have traveled to Iraq, via Syria, Egypt, Turkey or Iran. Once there, they have been more or less integrated into the anti-U.S. resistance, often to commit suicide attacks.
In 2005, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London estimated that the number of foreign volunteers in Iraq to be at least 1,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Oh wait. I guess they didn't read the fine print that demands that they die, too.
Snooty dumbasses...
It's much easier to go after French civilians.
Are they worried that successful suicide jihadis are returning to europe?
These "hardened, trained fighters" are the ones who ran the fastest after emptying one mag from an AK47 in the general direction of American troops. The only thing their "training" has taught them was that they can only "fight" disarmed, unsuspecting civilians. Europe will provide them a happy hunting ground.
"There is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie. This is the biggest lie we've been told." - Michael Moore
I want Mikey's side to be prosecuted for THEIR war crimes.
We can fight the war on terror to win or we can let Islamonazis and international socialists win.
The armies are in place. The riots over 12 cartoons showed that.
Just waiting for the signal...
Might want to try a change of tactics there, Pierre.
Oh, oooops, never mind - just keep waving your white flag, bow five times a day in the right direction, get rid of all that vino and everyhting will be just fine...
What you might have here are jihadists that are well trained in how to make IED's.
Oh, yeah. These ARE the French aren't they?
I was thinking of something along the lines of GITMO as the type of infrastructure being prepared to accommodate them.
True. I also liked this quote: "As far back as October, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war". Sounds like the bad guys have been experiencing difficulties for some time. During the Spanish Civil War, the "Internationals" (non-Spanish Leftists) were sent home when the military situation of the Republicans (Spanish Leftists) became untenable.
Ummmm...that thought leads me to a place I don't like at all.
I can only say that while the EU politicians bad-mouthed Bush, the US and the Iraqi war their citizen soldier volunteer (Jihadists) will return to destroy the utopian mindset that allowed them to knife American in the back.
The most interesting part of a Jihadist war on France, Germany, Belguim, Spain el at., will be how the EUro currency fares... I would love to see the EUro drop back to one-to-one with the dollar (to stimulate EU exports - haha - not because it was overvalued!).
Did you notice that all the nations you mentioned, with the exception of Austria and maybe parts of Luxembourg, were Latin?
I wonder if this is some sort of dividing line betwen the "tough" European nations and the "soft" ones?
Just a thought, probably nothing to it.
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