Saudi Muslim extremists said to be fighting U.S. forces in Iraq

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Despite official denials, there have been signs for months that Saudi Muslim extremists have traveled to Iraq to take on U.S.-led forces.

Internet memorials to those who died fighting the Americans have popped up and Saudis are quietly swapping tales said to be from the front lines. Many of the men going to Iraq had previously fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia and were experts on guerrilla warfare, said Abdullah Bjad al-Otaibi, who once counted himself among the extremists and now writes about them for Saudi newspapers.

Saudi extremists are "looking to die and the quickest way to heaven, as far as they're concerned, is fighting infidels, in this case represented by the U.S. forces in Iraq," al-Otaibi said. "Nothing inflames their emotions like the presence of U.S. troops in a Muslim country. The presence of the troops in Iraq, especially with the instability there, is like a magnet to them."

Saudi officials, sensitive to any charges extremism may be emanating from the kingdom, have categorically dismissed the possibility their citizens are fighting in Iraq. In an interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat published Saturday, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef called such allegations "baseless."

An Iraqi investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two Saudis and others arrested Saturday admitted connections to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.

Al-Qaida is a Sunni Muslim group whose followers may have seen no contradiction in attacking a shrine holy to the minority Shiite Muslim sect.

The strict form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia shows little tolerance for non-Wahhabi Sunnis and Shiites. In addition, a prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric who died along with dozens more in Friday's bombing -- Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim -- had been cooperating with the American occupation force. Extremists had threatened Arabs and Muslims who worked with the Americans.

U.S. officials have said several foreign fighters have been apprehended by U.S. troops in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq and that papers found with them indicate they came into Iraq from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. The officials said U.S. investigators were still trying to determine their identities, origins and travel routes.

Al-Otaibi, the Saudi expert on extremists, said he doesn't believe there are more than 200 Saudis fighting in Iraq, but devotion to their cause could make them a potent force.

In recent months, a number of Saudi fighters in Iraq reportedly have called friends back home and told them about successful operations in an effort to recruit more fighters.

If Saudis are being pulled toward Iraq out of religious fervor, they also may be pushed there by their government's new stated policy of zero tolerance for militancy.

Since the May 12 suicide bombings of Western housing compounds in Riyadh killed 26 foreigners and Saudis and nine Saudi attackers, Saudi Arabia has launched a major crackdown, setting up roadblocks in all the country's major cities. More than 200 al-Qaida linked terrorists have been arrested and more than a dozen killed in shootouts with security forces and an arsenal of weapons has been unearthed in Saudi Arabia.

Slipping across the border into Iraq offers an escape from the crackdown as well as a chance to fight the United States, but it is done quietly.

"American pressure on the kingdom and the fact that Saudi Arabia itself has suffered from militants has made it difficult for people to openly support the resistance in Iraq," said Al-Riyadh journalist Mansour al-Nogaidan.

He said clerics and mainstream Saudi newspapers earlier had been more openly supportive of Saudis fighting in Iraq. Still, he said, the presence of Saudi fighters in Iraq is well-known among most Saudis.

"Friends have told me about relatives fighting in Iraq," he said, adding he'd read a web site notice last week about a young Saudi killed fighting in Iraq.

Khalid al-Ghannami, a writer and columnist specializing in extremists and Islamic issues, said two of his neighbors went to fight in Iraq and the younger brother, a teenager, was killed there and eulogized on a web site as a martyr.

He said the borders between Saudi Arabia and Iraq were porous and long. Shepherds move freely between the two countries and volunteer fighters can do the same, he said.

U.S.-Saudi cooperation in the war against terrorism has increased since the May 12 Riyadh bombings. Earlier this month, the Saudi government agreed to let U.S. investigators form a joint task force to root out terrorist money from the Middle East kingdom where 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers grew up.