Washington, Sept 17: Up to 2,000 foreign fighters, many of them hardcore terrorists trained by al-Qaeda, may be present in Iraq, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has said. "There are clearly a number of foreign fighters, non-Iraqis, who are in the country and they're clearly trying to get to the fight because Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism," Rice said.
"I've seen... estimates of anything from several hundred -- high hundreds -- to a couple of thousand," Rice said.
The American soldiers now have to fight the jihad as most of the foreign fighters are hardcore trained terrorists emanating from al-Qaeda camps.
"They would have been fighting and committing terrorist acts someplace in the world. They're now drawn to Iraq, where, frankly, we are in a position to confront them and to disable them," she said. The US is stepping up pressure on Syria to curb the influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq, she said, noting that "Syria is a country with which we continue to have a number of problems."
"We are constantly reminding the Syrians that they have obligations to make certain that their border is not used for terrorists to cross," Rice said. Bureau Report