Rebels Aided By Sources in Syria, U.S. Says…
U.S. military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognized from Syria, where they said former Saddam Hussein loyalists have found sanctuary and are channeling money and other support to those fighting the established government.
Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency.
In some cases, evidence suggests that these Baathists are managing operations in Iraq from a distance, the officials said. A U.S. military summary of operations in Fallujah noted recently that troops discovered a global positioning signal receiver in a bomb factory in the western part of the city that “contained waypoints originating in western Syria.”
Concerns about Syria’s role in Iraq were also expressed in interviews The Washington Post conducted yesterday with Jordan’s King Abdullah and Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar. “There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back,” Yawar said. “They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process.”
Abdullah noted that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that “foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria.”
