The Hindu : International : Iraq breeding world jihadists, says CIA

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Friday, Jun 24, 2005

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International

Iraq breeding world jihadists, says CIA

Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor

LONDON: The war in Iraq is creating a new breed of Islamic jihadists who could go on to destabilise other countries, according to a CIA report.

The CIA believes Iraq to be potentially worse than Afghanistan, which produced thousands of jihadists in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the recruits to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had fought in Afghanistan.

The sobering caution came as a senior British anti-terrorism source warned that those trained in terror techniques in Iraq could use their newly-acquired skills in Britain at the end of the war.

The CIA report, completed last month, remains classified. But a CIA source on Wednesday confirmed that its broad conclusions, disclosed by the New York Times on Wednesday, were accurate.

The UK Foreign Office and British security services are sceptical about the CIA assessment that the insurgency could spill into other countries. Security sources said that there was only a ``trickle'' of recruits from Britain joining the insurgency in Iraq. If there was to be a spill-over, Saudi Arabia is potentially vulnerable because many of the Arab fighters in Iraq originate from there. Jamal Khashoggi, media adviser to the Saudi ambassador in London, said on Wednesday he agreed in part with the U.S. assessment.

``It will be worse than Afghanistan,'' he said.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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