SYDNEY, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida in Iraq is reportedly trying to use Australia as a recruiting ground for the insurgency.
Ghanim Taha al-Shibli, Iraq's ambassador to Australia, says that he observed followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi approaching voters at polling places in Sydney during last year's Iraqi elections. Iraqis abroad could vote in foreign countries.
"Those people are recruiting your people and soliciting money and sending those people to Iraq and that's not a secret, you know," he said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The ambassador said that Australian authorities are aware of the recruiting efforts and are trying to stop it.
Kevin Rudd, a spokesman for the opposition on foreign affairs, blamed the policies of Prime Minister John Howard.
"John Howard took Australia to war in Iraq arguing that this was necessary to reduce the overall al-Qaida threat to Australia," he told The Australian. "Nearly three years later what we find is, rather than reducing this terrorist threat, John Howard's Iraq war has increased the threat -- both in Iraq and in Australia."
