Scores Sneak Into Iraq To Fight U.S. Troops: Report/BAGHDAD, August 20 (IslamOnline.net)

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-08/20/article01.shtml

Scores Sneak Into Iraq To Fight U.S. Troops: Report

A file photo for Arab volunteers entering Iraq

By Subhy Haddad, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, August 20 (IslamOnline.net) - At least 50 Palestinians, Tunisians and Kurds have sneaked into Iraqi Kurdistan to carry out attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, an Iraqi Kurdish official said Tuesday, August 19.

"These infiltrators were expected to be helped by loyalists to ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to reach the (oil city) of Kirkuk and then move to middle Iraq to carry out military operations against U.S. forces, or join their supporters in southern Iraq," the Commander of the General Security at Sulaimaniya Province in Iraqi Kurdistan, Dana Ahmed Majid, told the Iraqi Al-Zamaan newspaper.

He said that they were unarmed and had their hair cut and beards shaved before gaining an entre to the war-ravaged country, adding that they were carrying forged passports.

Majid further claimed that a former commander of the Kurdish Ansar Al-Islam organization, identified as Abu-Wa’il, was the point man between the group and Baathists inside Iraq.

Inhabitants of the Kurdish town of Biara in northeastern Kurdistan said that Abu-Wa’il was extorting money from them, and ordered males who refused to pray, smoked cigarettes or women who refused to wear hijab (headscarf) be whipped.

Confirming the claims, deputy Commander of the Kurdish fighters (Peshmerga) in Sulaimaniya, Sheikh Mustafa Ja'afar, said that those fighters have arrived into Iraq following an official Iranian approval.

"The Iranians have allowed them to cross the borders with Kurdistan to infiltrate into the Iraqi cities of Baghdad, Ramadi (110km west of Baghdad) and Fallujah (60km from the Iraqi capital), where the U.S. forces have been target for several attacks that claimed the lives of dozens of them," Ja'afar said.

He continued: "Iran does not want to see Iraq restore its stability and security.. It wants to create problems for the Americans."

Between 700 to 900 of Ansar Al-Islam activists were expelled or killed in joint American-Kurdish operations.

At the very beginning of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, U.S. planes bombarded posts of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq.