More "Mythical" Foreign Fighters Reported Killed in Iraq
By Evan Kohlmann
Supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaida faction have announced the deaths of two more supposedly "mythical" foreign fighters in Iraq. On September 25, Abu Muaz al-Kuwaiti--a former soldier in the Kuwaiti Army--was reported killed during a "boating accident" while engaged in jihad in Iraq (English translation c/o Globalterroralert.com). According to his comrade Abu al-Zubair al-Maqour, Abu Muaz had previously attempted to join Al-Qaida in Afghanistan only to be captured by Iranian security forces on the Afghan border and held prisoner for several months. Likewise, Abu Muaz' first trip seeking jihad in Iraq during 2004 also met with failure: "everyone was suspicious of him and every time he asked about the mujahideen in front of a mosque, the people would ignore him because he was a total stranger." One might wonder how local security forces could allow a known Islamic militant like Abu Muaz to enter and leave Kuwait seemingly at will.
Today, the Asbat al-Ansar movement in Lebanon has also announced the "martyrdom" of one of its members, Saleh Deeb al-Shayyib, who was reportedly killed on the morning of October 1 during "confrontations with the crusader forces in Mesopotamia." Asbat al-Ansar has been named by the U.S. government as both a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). In January 2005, the United States Treasury Department announced that a member of Zarqawi's Shura Council in Iraq "was assigned by Zarqawi to train members of Asbat al-Ansar in preparing forged documents" and "also brought $10,000 for Abu Muhjin, the leader of Asbat al-Ansar, from Zarqawi."
Zarqawi's supporters have also responded to the recent release of a report on Iraq's foreign fighters by Anthony Cordesman and Nawaf Obeid at CSIS--referring to it as "ridiculous nonsense", "hilarious", and the result of "misleading... estimates originating from apostate tyrants." One respondent to the CSIS report wrote simply, "dear brothers, they are not only liars, but stupid as well." Other respondents estimated the total number of foreign mujahideen in Iraq as between 3,000-5,000 fighters.
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