U.S. divided on extent of foreign involvement in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Top U.S. military and civilian officials were at odds Thursday over the role of foreign fighters in this week's savage bombings at Shiite Muslim religious shrines -- acts of violence that raised the specter of sectarian war.

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said it was "increasingly apparent" terrorism was coming from outside Iraq, but some American generals were far less certain about the extent of the foreign role.

The brutal sophistication of Tuesday's bombings in Karbala and Baghdad pointed to a foreign influence on an insurgency that is still mainly homegrown, said Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, which controls Baghdad.

"It's far more than a supposition and far less than empirical evidence" to say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected anti-U.S. militant with ties to al-Qaida, had a hand in the Tuesday blasts, Dempsey said. "It's a very educated guess."

He called the idea that foreign fighters were flooding Iraq "a misconception."

Another military official in Baghdad, who asked not to be named, said intelligence "strongly suggests" al-Zarqawi was behind the blasts Tuesday, the bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed.

The Iraqi Governing Council said 271 people were killed in the attacks; the U.S. coalition said 181 people were killed and 573 wounded.

Al-Zarqawi emerged as the top suspect within hours of the bombings.

Bremer and members of the Governing Council took turns blaming the Jordanian fugitive, the alleged author of a letter calling for a civil war fueled by attacks on Iraq's majority Shiites.

U.S. officials have discounted a statement by 12 insurgent groups that claimed al-Zarqawi was killed by American bombing last year. But in Washington, a military official said he couldn't be sure the Jordanian is alive.

"There is no direct evidence whether he is alive or dead at this point, that we have," Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, who runs the war in Iraq, said he had evidence al-Zarqawi was behind the massacres on the Shiite holy day of Ashoura. But other U.S. officials later said they could not elaborate because the evidence was still "being developed."

In Najaf, meanwhile, police Maj. Mohammed Dayekh said Thursday an Iraqi member of al-Zarqawi's network had confessed he and four other Iraqis were involved in the Karbala bombing. The U.S. military command said it was unaware of the purported confession by Mohammed Hanoun Hmood al-Mozani.

The U.S. military official in Baghdad said the case for foreigners having planned the attacks was bolstered by the capture of five "suspected foreign fighters" near the holy city of Karbala just 10 hours before the blasts.

The military has not determined the identity or nationalities of the five, nor whether they were linked to al-Zarqawi. The five were planning an attack on pilgrimages for Ashoura, which climaxed Tuesday. Fifteen other suspects -- including five Farsi-speakers, believed to be Iranian -- were being questioned.

However, Pentagon officials said Thursday it was not known whether the Farsi-speakers were from Iran. "We're not drawing any conclusions," said Lawrence Di Rita, a Pentagon spokesman.

Military commanders examining the aftermath of the bombings say they have dwindling knowledge about who is controlling and funding the insurgency that has been launching attacks in Baghdad, Karbala and elsewhere. Most of the attackers are still believed to be Iraqis, perhaps allied with foreigners.

Raids by U.S. troops have broken up or disrupted Baghdad's 14 guerrilla cells, composed of former Saddam loyalists, Dempsey said. As a result, stray Iraqi guerrilla fighters have banded into a "marriage of necessity" with more dangerous religious extremists, as well as foreign fighters, Dempsey said.

"We were fighting an enemy motivated by power," Dempsey told Western reporters in Baghdad. "Now we're fighting an enemy motivated by ideology. That's a far more tenacious enemy."

Bremer ordered an FBI-led investigation into the bombings.

"We've really got to find out who is responsible," Dempsey quoted Bremer as saying.

The 1st Armored Division is in the surveillance phase of its largest offensive, which aims to capture religious and political extremists in Baghdad, Dempsey said. A budding Iraqi intelligence force is helping locate targets, he said.

For that offensive, Dempsey will have some 45,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces at his disposal, including 10,000 members of the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division. It will take control of Baghdad next month when the 1st Armored departs.

Insurgent attacks in the Iraqi capital have dropped from 15 a day to about five, said Brig. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, a deputy division commander.

Several observers of the devastating attacks in Iraq disagree with the recent emphasis on foreign attackers, a popular theme among Bush administration officials striving to equate the violence in Iraq with the global "war on terror."

A police captain in Ramadi, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that Iraqi security in the western province of Anbar saw few if any foreign Arab fighters. He said he had heard of arrests of a Syrian and a Yemeni, but had no confirmation.

Most of the attacks on police in the province were believed carried out by former Saddam loyalists, he said.

On a trip to Iraq last month, Abizaid told many U.S. commanders he believed that public reports of large numbers of foreign terrorists entering Iraq were overstated. The commanders on the ground generally agreed with that assessment.