Saudis make up 41% of foreign fighters in Iraq

[Up2Late]

Source: The Guardian

Saudis make up 41% of foreign fighters in Iraq

· US raid on insurgent camp finds treasure trove of data
· Bombings and border crossings fall after seizure

Ian Black, Middle East editor
Friday November 23, 2007
The Guardian

More than 40% of the foreign fighters who entered Iraq to join the insurgency in the past year were citizens of Saudi Arabia, America's key partner in the Middle East, according to detailed information seized from a camp used by them. Documents and computers found by the US army at Sinjar, on the Iraqi-Syrian border, revealed that the other single largest group came from Libya, which is now being rehabilitated as a reliable western ally.

Overall, US officials reported that the number of foreign fighters entering Iraq this year dropped from 80-110 a month in the first half of the year to around 40 in October, partly due to the Sinjar raid.

After the raid the number of suicide bombings in Iraq fell to 16 in October - half the number seen during the summer months and down from a peak of 59 in March. US military officials believe that 90% of such bombings are by foreigners.

The captured data has been described as an intelligence treasure trove that included biographical details and the hometowns of the more than 700 fighters who entered Iraq since August 2006. Of those 307, or 41%, were Saudis and 137, or 18%, Libyans, senior US military sources told the New York Times....

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2215798,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

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You just can't make this stuff up. Oh Brother!

[varkam]

1. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

:argh:

[FREEWILL56]

2. Gee, isn't that a big surprise?

They were the bulk of those that had attacked us on 9-11 and bushco flies them out of our country safely after an order to stop all commercial flights was issued while later invading Iraq that had not attacked us? Something's been very rotten in DC and is smelling worse day by day.

[DRoseDARs]

3. Specifically per the FBI: 15 Saudis, 2 UAEs, 1 Lebanese, 1 Egyptian...

Edit:

Though I'm sure Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saddam Hussein mentored all of them during their private gay sex abortion orgies. :eyes:

[ohio2007]

8. But what could they all possibly have in common ?

maybe they built the flying robots that tin foilers claim flew into the towers?

[KansDem]

11. Yeah, 75% of the attackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia

And 10% were from the UAE, the new home for Halliburton world headquarters.

Yet we attacked Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11.

We attacked the wrong country...:grr:

[Solar_Power]

17. BinLaden is Saudi as well

[ohio2007]

18. The 'binLadens" are a major construction company empire doing buisness in the middle east and Africa

Osama is the binLaden family 'black sheep'

[KansDem]

20. Also financed Bush in his early oil ventures...

In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s frontman in Houston’s Main Bank.

The Arbusto deal wasn’t the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.

"Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)

BushWatch

How Americans can just sit back and accept this kind of collusion is beyond me.

[liberal renegade]

28. A black sheep

worth 300 million clams..

[indepat]

6. The Saudis: what a swell bunch of fellas, what friends of US values

[Hulk]

4. Wonder if they make this fact known on the propaganda network??

Fifteen of the hijackers who crashed their planes and caused the worst attack on US soil were from Saudi Arabia, yet we attacked Iraq?? Go figure. The chimp's head is stuck so far up chenney's ass, they look like one of the four legged horses with chenney for a head.

[mtnester]

5. Wait...I seem to recall something...oh YES!

and




and from Wiki a reminder of the nationality of those who hurt us so badly on September 11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizers_of_the_September_11,_2001_attacks#Suspected_hijackers


Oh, and least we forget how many members of the Saudi royal family flew outta here in the aftermath of September 11....I will let the readers decide for themselves if this happened or not:

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=14289

[ohio2007]

7. ..yet Saudi Arabia put up that border fence.....they can deny they are directly

crossing the border ;)

[MetaTrope]

9. And I suppose Bush was just hanging around Houston with a cup full of pencils

when Salem bin Laden handed him $50,000? Bet a lot of people wish they were on that gravy train.

[grahamhgreen]

10. The Saudi's own the White House.

[KansDem]

14. Evidenced by this photo:

This photo was taken in Crawford, Texas. So "American customs" should take precedence. And in America, whether you like it or not, men do not hold hands and kiss in public. If Bush were in Saudi Arabia, then there might be an argument to "do as the Romans do," and Bush with the help of his advisers would consider the need to observe Saudi customs. Yet, the Saudis come to America and Bush acquiesces to observe Saudi customs? The Saudis should have been informed that proper protocol in America, particularly among business types, is men do not hold hands and kiss in public. Bush should have insisted on this: after all, the meeting took place here. Yet, Bush is the submissive one and yields to the dominating Saudis, even in his own country.

I can't imagine what the corporate media and the right-wing hate mongers would have done if this were a Democratic president. Yet...crickets.

If ever there was a photo that proves the Saudis own the present White House, it's this one.

[olddad56]

27. Bush probably held more than his hand...

I hope it didn't make Victor Ashe jealous.

[LynnTheDem]

12. 9/11 hikackers

Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Lebanon
Egypt.

And George W bUsh invaded Iraq & declares Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Egypt "good US allies".

Only a republic is that deeply stupid. Only republics are deeply stupid enough to support such deep stupidity.

[dougolat]

13. Hush, don't wake up the kids! nt

[ohio2007]

15. I wonder when Hillary will order a "shock and awe" strike on our friends...

...the woman haters ?

[FREEWILL56]

21. I think it was started already.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3683048

[SOS]

16. Saudi Arabia 41%, Iran 0%

Yet the corporate media and the White House would have us believe the opposite is true.

[ohio2007]

19. Saudi Arabia 41%, Iran 0% France 2%

but the EU including France rely heavily on Iranian crude oil.
Next invasion should be non NATO,non US and all EU

imo

[Igel]

23. Considering that this only talks about a 200 mi (km?)

stretch along the Syrian border, in which a Salafist group smuggled other takfiris to act as insurgents, it makes sense.

Sa'udis might try to cross directly, but that's a bear. People from the Maghreb would most likely fly to Amman or Damascus, and then go overland. And that's what this shows they did. Many from the mashreq would do the same if it's more convenient: Sa'udi Arabia is in the mashreq and discourages--as does Kuwait--would-be jihadis.

Why anybody thinks a Shi'ite would fly from, say, Isfahan to Damascus and then go overland through Salafist Sunni territory to get to Baghdad and points east and south is a mystery to me. I'd go overland directly, possibly disguised as a pilgrim.

I haven't heard many claims about Iranian fighters; organizers and advisors, but not fighters. Just dribs and drabs--this person in this fight or some group in a specific attack--and even those claims have been tempered recently.

[David Zephyr]

22. So where are Kyle and Lieberman on this? Where's Hillary on this?

?

[rocktivity]

24. That sounds impressive until you wonder what percentage of THE ENTIRE INSURGENCY

is made up of foreign fighters. Last I heard, it was around ten per cent.

:shrug:
rocknation

[Historic NY]

25. With friends like the Saudis who needs enemys....

we should advance a coup of the House of Saud, imagine knocking off 15 thousand or so repressive royals.

[Bonobo]

26. What? You mean the ones that did the Towers want to kill us? No way!!!!