How many foreign fighters in faluja?

How many foreign fighters in faluja? Not many it seems.

Predominantly, however, most of the 1,052 are in fact Iraqis. But there are individuals that are from different countries, and I don't really have that right in front of me at this time. I will just say this, that as we go through the mortuary affairs, which is a very humanitarian process -- a little gruesome, as you can imagine; a Marine who fought and might have lost a buddy is now aiding by picking up the terrorists and helping in the Islamic tradition of putting them with the right respect a combatant deserves on the battlefield. We can't really identify all of those, but some of our Iraqi brethren which are helping out in this joint effort are saying this guy is clearly from -- let's just say Syria; this individual here is from another country. And so they're helping out. But at this time, out of 1,052 most likely about 1,040 -- or 1,030 are Iraqis.

From here.
So are the people in Faluja "terrorists" or merely resisting a foreign agressor?

[edit on 16-11-2004 by judge]

are saying this guy is clearly from -- let's just say Syria

How do they know, if he is dead?

A Morrocan, maybe, but are you telling me that there it that big of a difference in the features of a Syrian and an Iraqi?

we all should know there are at least 1600 thats how many we killed. Those marines sure are good terrorist hunters.

I read 12, one report said 24 foreigners. That's a lot of dead Iraqis. Soon, we'll beat Saddam's record.

Not possible.

Some of you people are confused. You say our actions are just creating more terrorists, that Iraq is a terrorist haven that did not exist before the invasion, yet at the same time they're just freedom fighters resisting American aggression.

Which is it?

Either they're terrorists, newly arrived or somehow newly "created" since we got there, or they're just patriots fighting a foreign occupier. They can't be both.

The vast majority of Iraqi insurgents fall under 2 categories: they're either criminals released by Saddam before the invasion, and/or they're Sunnis who are pissed off their man Saddam was taken away from them and are not about to live under the thumb of the majority Shi'as, who they've brutally abused and oppressed for the past several decades.

The Shi'as, by any and all indications, are happy we are there. They want us out so they can live their own lives, but they also fear the reestablishment of the old brutal order, which the Sunni insurgents are fighting to restore.

Just the facts people, not your hysterical paranoid speculations.

[edit on 17-11-2004 by Ibn Iblis]

Problem is, there's very little we can do to assess how many of those killed (or captured) in Falluja were foreigners. I read an interview (sorry, but the link doesn't seem to work anymore) to a group of Falluja residents by an European press agency: they said a that "a few hundreds" foreigners arrived in Falluja last year. They were extremely well organized and, more importantly, they seemed to possess a lot of cash, which they promptly used to buy weapons and the locals' support. Most of them were Chechenyans and Afghanis, but there were also Jordanians, Moroccans (very few), Saudis and Algerians. Later they were joined by more "foreigners", arriving in small but very organized groups. These groups also possessed lots of cash and immediately used it to buy weapons and secure the locals' aid. Apparently they knew exactly where to get the weapons they needed, which Falluja residents were sympathetic to their cause, which areas were safe to settle their bases and so on. In the last period (when the land offensive appeared inevitable), most of these foreigners disappeared, leaving behind their weapons and stopped giving money to the locals. The residents were adamant: they only helped out the foreigners as long as cash was forthcoming. Most of the population didn't sympathize with them, but merely acted out of need or greed. It reminds me of old saying: you will never be able to buy an Afghan, but will always find one for hire.