Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
October 29, 2008
Abu Ghadiyah had smuggled fighters across the border for years. On Sunday, he was killed by attacking U.S. forces.
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- For years, he operated along Syria's remote border, where donkeys are the only means of travel. He provided young Arabs from as far away as Morocco and the Persian Gulf with passports, guides and weapons as they slipped into Iraq to wage war.
But recently, the Iraqi man known as Abu Ghadiyah began doing even more, launching his own armed forays into his homeland, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Finally the United States lashed out, frustrated after years of vainly pressuring Syria to shut down his network supplying the Sunni insurgency.
The Americans carried out a bold daylight raid Sunday in a farming community known as Abu Kamal, just across the border in Syria. The United States says Abu Ghadiyah and several bodyguards were killed. Syria says eight civilians died.
Whatever Abu Ghadiyah's fate, the attack targeting him has become a seminal moment, casting rare light on the hidden, complex networks that recruit foreign fighters and then deliver them across Syria to the battlefields of Iraq.
Syria has long insisted it monitors the border and does all it can to stop weapons and fighters. But the raid and U.S. documents - recently made public - indicate that insurgents operating in Syria's border region are still providing the materiel that enables suicide attacks, bombings and ambushes to continue inside Iraq.
Until the raid, Abu Ghadiyah was mostly unknown outside a tight circle of Western and Iraqi intelligence officers. He housed his recruits in Damascus and the Syrian port of Latakiya before moving them across the Iraqi border, a senior Iraqi security officer said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Scores of people are involved in the smuggling networks, officials say. But Iraqi police held special disdain for Abu Ghadiyah, a native of the Iraqi city of Mosul. In May, he led a border attack on an Iraqi police station in Qaim, killing 12.
Sunday's raid was launched because of intelligence that Abu Ghadiyah was planning another attack inside Iraq.
Much of the publicly known information about networks such as Abu Ghadiyah's comes from documents seized in a U.S. raid last year on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in Sinjar, Iraq. The documents include records of about 590 foreign volunteers who entered Iraq from Syria.
According to the documents, nearly 100 Syrian coordinators are involved in transporting foreign fighters through Syria. Some are professional smugglers, apparently hired by al-Qaeda in purely business deals. Others are motivated by hard-line Islamist ideology.
Most of the young Arab volunteers recorded in the Sinjar documents came from Saudi Arabia and Libya. They made their way to Syria, where they linked up with coordinators. Some coordinators charged up to $2,500 to help volunteer fighters reach Iraq.
Once provided with passports and other documents, the volunteers traveled to border areas, where they entered Iraq on foot along with guides from local tribes. Since 2004, Abu Ghadiyah had organized much of that traffic.
Abu Ghadiyah's real beliefs are unclear, but a U.S. document says he was named al-Qaeda in Iraq's logistics chief for Syria by the group's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
U.S. officials say they believe Syria has tried to crack down on smugglers and tighten controls along the 350-mile border. But Syria has been unable to keep up the pressure, in part because its government needs support from local tribes and revenue from the bribes the smugglers pay to local officials.
Those sensitivities are apparent in Abu Kamal, where people wear traditional Iraqi clothing and speak with Iraqi accents. "Most of the inhabitants of the area originally come from areas of Iraq, and there are very strong family ties," said Ahmed al-Khalifa, a lawyer from Abu Kamal. "There is strong sympathy here with whatever happens in Iraq."
October 29, 2008
Abu Ghadiyah had smuggled fighters across the border for years. On Sunday, he was killed by attacking U.S. forces.
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- For years, he operated along Syria's remote border, where donkeys are the only means of travel. He provided young Arabs from as far away as Morocco and the Persian Gulf with passports, guides and weapons as they slipped into Iraq to wage war.
But recently, the Iraqi man known as Abu Ghadiyah began doing even more, launching his own armed forays into his homeland, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Finally the United States lashed out, frustrated after years of vainly pressuring Syria to shut down his network supplying the Sunni insurgency.
The Americans carried out a bold daylight raid Sunday in a farming community known as Abu Kamal, just across the border in Syria. The United States says Abu Ghadiyah and several bodyguards were killed. Syria says eight civilians died.
Whatever Abu Ghadiyah's fate, the attack targeting him has become a seminal moment, casting rare light on the hidden, complex networks that recruit foreign fighters and then deliver them across Syria to the battlefields of Iraq.
Syria has long insisted it monitors the border and does all it can to stop weapons and fighters. But the raid and U.S. documents - recently made public - indicate that insurgents operating in Syria's border region are still providing the materiel that enables suicide attacks, bombings and ambushes to continue inside Iraq.
Until the raid, Abu Ghadiyah was mostly unknown outside a tight circle of Western and Iraqi intelligence officers. He housed his recruits in Damascus and the Syrian port of Latakiya before moving them across the Iraqi border, a senior Iraqi security officer said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Scores of people are involved in the smuggling networks, officials say. But Iraqi police held special disdain for Abu Ghadiyah, a native of the Iraqi city of Mosul. In May, he led a border attack on an Iraqi police station in Qaim, killing 12.
Sunday's raid was launched because of intelligence that Abu Ghadiyah was planning another attack inside Iraq.
Much of the publicly known information about networks such as Abu Ghadiyah's comes from documents seized in a U.S. raid last year on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in Sinjar, Iraq. The documents include records of about 590 foreign volunteers who entered Iraq from Syria.
According to the documents, nearly 100 Syrian coordinators are involved in transporting foreign fighters through Syria. Some are professional smugglers, apparently hired by al-Qaeda in purely business deals. Others are motivated by hard-line Islamist ideology.
Most of the young Arab volunteers recorded in the Sinjar documents came from Saudi Arabia and Libya. They made their way to Syria, where they linked up with coordinators. Some coordinators charged up to $2,500 to help volunteer fighters reach Iraq.
Once provided with passports and other documents, the volunteers traveled to border areas, where they entered Iraq on foot along with guides from local tribes. Since 2004, Abu Ghadiyah had organized much of that traffic.
Abu Ghadiyah's real beliefs are unclear, but a U.S. document says he was named al-Qaeda in Iraq's logistics chief for Syria by the group's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
U.S. officials say they believe Syria has tried to crack down on smugglers and tighten controls along the 350-mile border. But Syria has been unable to keep up the pressure, in part because its government needs support from local tribes and revenue from the bribes the smugglers pay to local officials.
Those sensitivities are apparent in Abu Kamal, where people wear traditional Iraqi clothing and speak with Iraqi accents. "Most of the inhabitants of the area originally come from areas of Iraq, and there are very strong family ties," said Ahmed al-Khalifa, a lawyer from Abu Kamal. "There is strong sympathy here with whatever happens in Iraq."
