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Baathist Resistance Fighters Highly

Juan Cole 09/14/2003

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Baathist Resistance Fighters Highly Organized in Iraq

The Baathist cells hitting American troops in and around Baquba are tightly knit, organized and take direction from a command cell in Diyala. This according to interviews conducted by Knight-Ridder and summarized by Hannah Allam. These guerrillas are a combination of remnants of the Baath military, young volunteers (men and women) who feel harmed by US actions, and foreigners who either were already serving in the Fedayeen of Saddam or who slipped into Iraq in the past few months. At the level of the lower-level cells, at least, there is no contact with al-Qaeda, and the guerrillas scoff at “Wahhabi” ideas. They are, however, more oriented to Sunni Islam than the old-style Baath Arab nationalists typically used to be. Allam’s report, which has not been widely picked up, supports my conviction that most of the violence in Iraq is coming from Arab nationalists, not from foreign al-Qaeda terrorists.

See

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/

cctimes/6763724.htm

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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