|
Baghdad: Senior leaders of Al Qaida may be diverting fighters from the war in Iraq to the Afghan frontier area, the top American commander in Iraq said on Saturday.
General David Petraeus also said Al Qaida may be reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front.
"There is some intelligence that has picked this up," he said in an interview in his office at the US Embassy.
"It's not solid gold intelligence," he added, stressing the reliability of the information has not been confirmed and it does not mean Al Qaida has given up on Iraq.
Nonetheless, he cited the signs as part of a broadly positive review of conditions in Iraq, where Al Qaida fighters over the past year have been driven almost entirely from Baghdad and pummelled in other urban areas.
The other main source of violence over the past year - Shiite militia extremists, also has been curbed.
Petraeus said that whether leaders of those Shiite groups, who fled in many cases to Iran, end up returning to fight for control of such Baghdad sections as Sadr City will be a critical bellwether.
Continued viability
Petraeus said his information about a possible shift in Al Qaida resources away from Iraq was based on human intelligence, meaning informants.
If confirmed, it could have profound implications not only for Iraq, where terrorist and insurgent violence has been on a steep decline, but also for Afghanistan, where militants crossing the border from Pakistan are a growing threat to the government in Kabul.
"There are unsubstantiated rumours and reflections that perhaps some foreign fighters originally intended for Iraq may have gone to FATA," he said, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of Al Qaida's fight in Iraq," he said.
"They're not going to abandon Iraq, they're not going to write it off. None of that. But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
Petraeus said that until now, communications from senior leaders of Al Qaida to their lieutenants in Iraq have made it clear that Iraq is its highest priority for establishing an Islamic state within reach of the West.
"That could be under review," Petraeus said. "We do think they are considering what should be the main effort."
Even if it proves true that Al Qaida is putting less effort into Iraq, Petraeus said that does not mean the terrorist network that originally was based in Afghanistan before US forces invaded the country in October 2001 will give up entirely on fighting in Iraq.
"Al Qaida very much remains a factor in Iraq," he said.
|
