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thedrifter
04-07-07, 08:02 AM
U.S. general: War infiltration from Syria slows -- because terrorists need less help

By: ROBERT BURNS - Associated Press

BORDER FORT 13, Iraq -- Infiltration of arms and fighters from Syria into Iraq has slowed, but a major reason is that the terrorists of al-Qaida in Iraq now need less foreign help, a senior U.S. general said Friday.

Visiting this remote outpost, just a stone's throw from the border, Marine Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin said the change has made persistent infiltration of men, weapons and money less of a concern to U.S. forces here.

However, it also suggests a troubling maturation of al-Qaida in Iraq, the main terrorist organization targeted by American troops in the country.


"Al-Qaida has become self-sufficient inside the country," Gaskin said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The terrorists successfully target truck stops and other points along roadways leading east from the border area to hijack commercial vehicles and intimidate merchants, the general said. He estimated that a hijacked truck carrying fuel oil could yield $64,000.

"If you get a few of those a day, you can fund your enterprise," he said of the terrorists.

The Bush administration has accused Syria's leaders of allowing terrorists to use their country as a staging area for sending fighters, weapons and other material into Iraq since the start of the war. Just this week, President Bush criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria, a trip Bush said could only encourage a state sponsor of terrorism.

From this small fort about 100 miles west of the town of Rutbah, signs of infiltrators are about as scarce as plant life. For as far the eye can see in any direction, there is almost nothing on the table-flat landscape but dirt, rocks, towering dust clouds and an earthen berm marking the border with Syria.

Gaskin, who visited here with Gen. James T. Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said he was pleased with the work of Iraqi border enforcement troops who run a network of forts along much of their country's western border. A U.S. team led by Lt. Col. Stefan Bien is training the Iraqis to eventually handle border security by themselves.

"They're pretty good," Gaskin said of the Iraqis, whose commander, Brig. Gen. Sabeer Talab gave the generals a tour of the fort and played host for a lunch of mutton, rice and flatbread.

Gaskin is the commanding general of about 35,000 U.S. forces in Anbar province, which stretches west from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

In addition to struggling to secure the border with Syria, U.S. officials have complained that Iraq's neighbor to the east, Iran, has sponsored illicit shipments of arms, bomb-making materials and fighters into Iraq.

Gaskin said a certain amount of infiltration from Syria is unstoppable. That's because foreign fighters largely avoid Iraq's network of border forts, like this one near the point where the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Syria meet. Instead they slip through official entry points posing as legitimate traders.

"You have to understand that in the culture here, what we call infiltration is just normal economics for them," Gaskin said in the interview. "The black market is a way of life," and foreign supporters of al-Qaida in Iraq have learned how to take advantage of that, he said.

"They don't come across ready to kill," Gaskin added. "They may come across driving a truck. They may be trying to sell something and they may be hauling weapons in the back." Border inspectors catch some, but others get through, sometimes to link up with a contact just beyond the border.

To illustrate his point about smuggling as a cultural tradition, Gaskin said he recently visited a sheik who introduced him to his three sons.

"One son is a doctor, one son is a lawyer and the one I'm most proud of is a smuggler," he quoted the sheik as saying.

In fact, the general said, one reason that some of the sheiks have recently turned against al-Qaida is that the terrorist group has disrupted their trading or smuggling business.

Conway and Gaskin later flew by CH-53 helicopter north from here to Qaim, a border town on the Euphrates River in the northern region of Anbar province where U.S. forces have made strong progress against the insurgency. Conway was told that some areas around Qaim are nearly ready to be placed in full Iraqi control.

Ellie