http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002634946_insurgents20.htmlFace of the Iraq insurgency: What role do foreigners play?
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Before 8,500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers methodically swept through Tal Afar two months ago in the year's largest counterinsurgency offensive, commanders described the northern city as a logistics hub for fighters, including foreigners entering the country from Syria, 40 miles to the west.
"They come across the border and use Tal Afar as a base to launch attacks across northern Iraq," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which led the assault, said in a briefing the day before it began.
When the air and ground operation wound down in mid-September, nearly 200 insurgents had been killed and close to 1,000 detained, the military said at the time.
But interrogations and other analyses carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June.In a recent interview, McMaster maintained that foreigners were at least partly responsible for the "climate of fear" that pervaded Tal Afar before insurgents were driven out in September; he cited beheadings, suicide attacks and the abduction of young men to conscript them as fighters.