No Longer Fighting Them "Over There"
In today's presser, WorstPresidentEver pretty much abandoned all this favorite catch phrases and rhetoric on Eye-Rack and based his entire argument on what radio personality/comedienne Stephanie Miller calls "the puppy dog excuse" - that if you don't do something over there, they (the terra-ists) will just follow you home.
Well, if you'll pardon the expression, that dog won't hunt anymore:
The conflict in Iraq is drawing fewer foreign fighters as Muslim extremists aspiring to battle the West turn their attention back to the symbolically important and increasingly violent turf of Afghanistan, European and U.S. anti-terrorism officials say.The shift of militants to Afghanistan this year suggests that Al Qaeda and its allies, armed with new tactics honed in Iraq, are coming full circle five years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban mullahs.
Until Sept. 11, 2001, Afghanistan was the land of jihad: hallowed ground where fighters from across the Muslim world helped vanquish the Soviet Union in 1980s, fought alongside the Taliban in the 1990s and filled training camps overseen by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Loss of the Afghan sanctuary scattered the networks and sent Bin Laden fleeing toward the Pakistani border region, where many anti-terrorism officials believe he remains.
After the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, Muslim extremists from the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Europe flocked to confront the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Although foreigners have been a minority in the Iraqi insurgency, militants such as Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi played a major role in suicide attacks and kidnap-killings.
But insurgent leaders in Iraq are now mainly interested in foreign recruits ready to die in suicide attacks, anti-terrorism officials say. Moreover, the conflict is dominated by violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. In contrast, an accelerating Afghan offensive by the resurgent Taliban offers a clearer battleground and a wealth of targets: U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, and the Western-backed government.
Oh, and if you think all we have to do is fight them in the first shitmire, I mean Afghanistan, think again:
The movement of fighters to Iraq began to decline last year as insurgent leaders in Syria, who serve as a conduit to the combat zone, began screening volunteers aggressively, turning them back unless they had strong military skills or were eager to carry out suicide attacks, European anti-terrorism officials said.Some newcomers were redirected to training camps in North Africa. Others were told to launch attacks in Europe, said a senior Italian anti-terrorism official. He described the confessions of Milan-based Tunisian and Moroccan suspects who got to Syria, but then were sent back: "They said the representative of Zarqawi's group really grilled them: 'Do you have military experience? Here's an AK-47; do you know how to use it? Have you ever fired a mortar? If not, we don't want you.' "
Instead, they were directed to bomb a basilica in Bologna because it displays a painting of the prophet Muhammad as depicted in Dante's Inferno, investigators say. Moroccan and Italian police broke up the alleged plot and arrested the group this spring.