26 September 2003
Bremer Says U.S. Forces Have Captured 19 Al-Qaida Terrorists In Iraq
Defense Department Report, September 26: Foreign Fighters Held
Washington -- Nineteen al-Qaida terrorists are among some 248 foreign fighters that have been captured by U.S. forces after infiltrating Iraq, says Ambassador Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
At a Pentagon briefing September 26, Bremer said that of the 248 foreign fighters, 123 are Syrians, and he said some of the other foreign fighters being detained are from Iran and Yemen.
Bremer said the terrorists have infiltrated Iraq "largely through the Syrian border." And, he said there is a possibility some of them are terrorists-for-hire from other regional groups.
Additionally, a second group of terrorists that pose a serious threat to U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq are from the Ansar al-Islam group, which, Bremer said, is al-Qaida oriented and linked to the international terrorist organization. He said the group that has reconstituted and reinfiltrated Iraq since the war "has now got probably several hundred members in Iraq, and they're a very dangerous terrorist group."
Bremer said other threats to coalition forces are coming from former Ba'athists, the Fedayeen Saddam, and approximately 100,000 criminals that had been released onto the streets of Iraq.
The identification of the terrorists has surfaced in interrogations or via personal documents found in their possession at the time of their capture, he said. "I can't say which it is for each one of them."
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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