WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) -- Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the prime training ground for foreign terrorists, U.S. leaders now admit.
Iraq has now become a terrorist training school for international Islamist guerrillas who may already be traveling across the globe and wreaking havoc in other countries such as Afghanistan, Knight Ridder newspapers reported Tuesday.
According to U.S. counter-terrorism officials and classified studies by the CIA and the State Department, there is already evidence that urban combat techniques being learned and used by foreign fighters assaulting U.S. and Iraqi troops are being replicated elsewhere.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Conway told a Pentagon briefing last week that remotely detonated bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs -- the insurgents' weapon of choice in Iraq -- were an increasing threat to U.S. forces trying to stabilize Afghanistan, the Knight-Ridder report said.
"The trend is a little bit troubling,'' Conway said.
Iraq's emergence as a terrorist training ground appears to challenge President George W. Bush's rationale for invading and overthrowing leader Saddam Hussein in March 2003. For Iraq wasn't a source of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism under Saddam and played no role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Critics argue that the U.S. invasion harmed, rather than helped, the war on terrorism by acting as a magnet and recruiting tool.
The president remains determined to stay the course in Iraq. However, the new reports and assessments reflect the increasing concern and worry over developments in Iraq and their repercussions within the U.S. government and foreign policy establishment.
