Here's an interesting report from the Boston Globe
Arab Islamic radicals who fled Afghanistan in the US-led invasion are coming back, eager to support suicide bombers in their increasingly frequent and effective attacks on Western and Afghan forces....
Battles in Afghanistan are on a smaller scale than in Iraq. However, Afghanistan's importance to Islamic radicals is great. Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Andrew Black, cofounder of Thistle Intelligence Group, an independent security studies group based in the US and Britain, says the fight in Afghanistan has an alluring clarity for Arab militants compared with Iraq, where war against the West is mixed up with sectarian strife between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. "With the Iraqi insurgency beginning to show signs of fissures . . . recruits will be more readily enticed to travel to Afghanistan, where the enemy is well defined," Black said. "Should the internecine fighting in Iraq become prolonged, the Afghan venue, and indeed other venues as well, will reap the benefits of added recruits."
Of course this AP report makes it sound as if the enemy is on the verge of some great victory in Afghanistan. But those keeping track know that NATO forces, those allowed to actually make contact with the enemy like the US, Britain, and Canada, thwarted a much vaunted "Spring Offensive". And when you can't win on the field of battle, you resort to terror.
But more importantly, this report could indicate that Iraq is no-longer the recruiting tool it once was for al Qaeda. Just a little over a year ago, news media were reporting how Iraq was the “cause célèbre” for Islamists with the Washington Post as well as MSNBC and other doing stories. Perhaps that has now changed? And with the current military operations designed to exterminate al Qaida in Iraq, the switch is likely to continue.
Afghan Army General Ghulam Mustafa Ishaqzai said the Arab influx has been going on for more than a year.
Hasn't helped them much.
