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Jihadi assembly point in Syria "abandoned"
By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press. EFL
What had once been an assembly point in Syria for Arabs eager to fight in Iraq is now abandoned. Posters of Palestinian cannon fodder "martyrs" in Iraq in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus are torn and faded. Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus, was the source of an estimated 300 Arab volunteers who went to Iraq to fight during the war, in the spring.
Did any of them come back?
Now, residents say it’s been months since they’ve heard of volunteers going to fight, bodies returning home or memorials held for slain men. "Nobody has gone to Iraq since the occupation and no one is stupid enough to go thinking of going," Salim Rashid, a 55-year-old Palestinian, said as he read a newspaper in his stationery store in Yarmouk. He recalled the disillusionment of Arab volunteers during the dying days of Saddam Hussein’s regime, after many Iraqis turned against the volunteers, accusing them of supporting the dictator.
"We lost!"
Faisal Younes said no more fighters had gone to Iraq since the fall of Baghdad in April. The volunteers were betrayed by Iraqis, the 36-year-old Palestinian said. Fighting for Iraq and Saddam was "a big lie."
The Iraqis who "betrayed" them were smart enough to recognize an enemy when they saw one.
One poster, that of Mohammed Hadrous, said he was killed April 11 in Basra, in southern Iraq. Abdul-Rahman Jamal Amer threw his wretched life away for a lost cause was "martyred" May 5 in Iraq. Thaer Abdullah’s, pasted outside the al-Wasim Mosque, gave no date.
Wonder how many "volunteers" "achieved gloruious martyrdom" versus how many came back alive?
Most of the foreign fighters are believed to be Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni, Kuwaiti and Saudi, the officials said. They said others are believed to include Arabs who carry Western passports, but said little intelligence information on them was available.
Posted by: Mike 2003-11-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=20788