THE MESOPOTAMIAN FIGHTERS OF MOROCCO

A new brand of Moroccan immigrants is surfacing these days: the Moslem integrists purveying death and mayhem in Iraq. A New analysis from the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. entitled “Al-Qaeda’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A first Look at the Sinjar Records” indicates that 50 Moroccans have crossed the Syrian border into Iraq between August 2006 and September 2007. The analysis was based on a trove of documents and 5 terabytes of data recovered by U.S. forces during a raid last September on a tent camp of an al-Qaeda cell in charge of transiting fighters in and out of Iraq. The camp was located in the wind-raked desert near Sinjar, a town near the Syrian/Iraqi border.

U.S. document and media exploitation (DOCEX) described the seizure as a collection of biographical sketches listing the name, age, educational background, hometown, and other details on more than 700 foreign fighters half of whom were to be used as suicide bombers while the other half would conduct terrorist operations as organic elements to Iraqi insurgent teams in Mosul, Kirkuk, al-Anbar region, and Baghdad. The foreign fighters have different reasons for waging jihad in Iraq; some are in for the money; other are imbued by the deadly ideology of Islamic Integrism. It is worth noting here that the victims of jihad in Iraq are mostly Iraqis.   

Saudi Arabia, the incompatible bedfellow of the U.S., accounted for the largest number of fighters with 305 individuals. The documents also show that Saudi citizens are the biggest financial supporter of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Whether the financing is orchestrated by the Saudi secret service remains to be proven. Saudi Arabian government has a strong motivation to support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq; their agenda is to undermine Shiite ascendancy in Iraq. 15 of the 19 hijackers who opened this Pandora’s Box on September 11, 2001, were from Saudi Arabia. Osama Bin Laden is also from Saudi Arabia. Why does the U.S. still have economic and diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia? Why didn’t the U.S. attack Saudi Arabia instead of Afghanistan and Iraq? The answers are luculent, but the logic behind them is nebulous.  

The Sinjar documents showed that during the period beginning in August 2006, 291 foreign fighters hailed from North African nations, which is much higher than earlier estimates by U.S. intelligence. The majority of the North African fighters are Libyans. Libya was lauded by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a U.S. ally committed to its renunciation of terrorism and for its excellent cooperation in the U.S. anti-terrorism fight. Fifty of the Libyan fighters, who constitute 18% of the total force, come from the small town of Darnah. 

Yemen accounted for 68 of the fighters; 64 were from Algeria, 38 from Tunisia, 14 from Jordan, 6 from Turkey, and 2 from Egypt. Each of the fighters had $1000.00 in cash, except for the Saudis who had much more. 

The return to Morocco of those who fight in Iraq constitutes a growing concern to Moroccan authorities. They bring with them guerrilla warfare know-how and the support of a network that is adaptive and has proved to be challenging to the most advanced military in the world. They will check in with an unflinching will to commit murder without commiseration to impose their austere interpretation of Islam. In some neighborhoods in Moroccan cities, these men are already a forbidding presence. It is also only a matter of time before Saudi terrorist networks train their suicide bombers and terrorists on Morocco. Saudi citizens, wobbling their petro-dollar fat wallets, seem to amble into Morocco unchecked.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008