News Flash: Iraq a breeding ground for terrorists, replacing Afghanistan

Now it's official: a new CIA National Intelligence Council report concludes that Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground/War Created Haven [Washington Post, registration required]:

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new report on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

[snip]
The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future " [link PDF, 6.69MB], highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials said their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may acquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device.

Here is a link to the part of the report that deals with terrorism. The relevant portion:

The core al-Qa'ida membership probably will continue to dwindle, but other groups inspired by al-Qa'ida, regionally based groups, and individuals labeled simply as jihadists--united by a common hatred of moderate regimes and the West--are likely to conduct terrorist attacks. The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq. We expect that by 2020 al-Qa'ida will have been superceded by similarly inspired but more diffuse Islamic extremist groups, all of which will oppose the spread of many aspects of globalization into traditional Islamic societies.

* Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are "professionalized" and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself.

* Foreign jihadists--individuals ready to fight anywhere they believe Muslim lands are under attack by what they see as "infidel invaders"--enjoy a growing sense of support from Muslims who are not necessarily supporters of terrorism.

Of course, the true believers among the neo-cons will dismiss the CIA as a nest of 'liberals' that are really soft on terrorism.

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laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
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can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.

--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
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