As Feared, Foreign Jihadists From Iraq Are Flooding Into Afghanistan

With the resounding victory by the U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, Afghanistan is now seeing the downside of that with jihadists from the Iraqi War now flooding into Afghanistan, according to the Afghan defense minister. This isn't a surprise as we have seen many jihadists from Iraq running to get away and ending up in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the last year, but was is a bit startling is the NUMBER of them now showing up in Afghanistan. Here's some of the details from the article over at the International Herald Tribune:

With the reduction of violence in Iraq, foreign militants were now flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops, the Afghan defence minister said on Wednesday.
There was a 33 percent rise in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan in 2008, according to NATO-led forces.

"Since last year, as the result of the success of the surge in Iraq, there has been a flow of foreign terrorists into Afghanistan," Wardak told a news conference.
"There have been engagements ... in 2008, and in some of these engagements, actually 60 percent of the total force which we have encountered were foreign fighters," he said. Wardak was speaking after he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, U.S. General John Craddock.

Obviously, this is bad news for U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan but the really intereting part of this is going to be whether or not there can be continued coordination between the foreign jihadists and the Taliban - let's face it, there is going to be some interesting dynamics here as some of these Arabs are going to try and set up their own operating agendas. At the same time, I wonder what the Taliban has thought through with dealing with these foreigners once things are over....that is if the Taliban are victorious. I mean, are these foreigners going to just leave at that point? Or are they gonna want a piece of the action, of the land, of the opium crop?

It's my hope that in the long run, this influx of foreigners into Afghanistan is going to ignite some splintering of the groups in Afghanistan and fuel some sparring and infighting. We saw how several of the Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups got to the point where their main mission at the end of the War was attacking al Qaeda in Iraq...not U.S. troops.

I'm all for some battles waging where 50 Arabs are killed by Taliban and 100 Taliban killed by Arabs.

Afghanistan says foreign fighters coming from Iraq

With the reduction of violence in Iraq, foreign militants were now flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops, the Afghan defence minister said on Wednesday.
There was a 33 percent rise in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan in 2008, according to NATO-led forces.
Violence is expected to rise further in 2009 as Washington prepares to send up to 25,000 more troops into new areas of the southern Pashtun heartlands.
Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said there were about 15,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but their numbers were being swelled by foreign insurgents moving in from Iraq, where violence has fallen after a U.S. troop "surge" and other measures.

"Since last year, as the result of the success of the surge in Iraq, there has been a flow of foreign terrorists into Afghanistan," Wardak told a news conference.
"There have been engagements ... in 2008, and in some of these engagements, actually 60 percent of the total force which we have encountered were foreign fighters," he said. Wardak was speaking after he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, U.S. General John Craddock.
The talks focussed on training and equipping the Afghan army, which the U.S. military aims to increase from some 80,000 troops now to 134,000 in 2012, the planned deployment of the extra U.S. soldiers and ways to reduce civilians casualties, Wardak said.
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to approve as early as this week plans to send up to 17,000 more combat troops to Afghanistan to add to the 36,000 American soldiers already battling Taliban insurgents in the country.
The additional U.S. forces will focus on hitting militant communication lines and their cross-border infiltration into Afghanistan from Pakistan. The extra troops will reduce reliance on air strikes, cutting civilian deaths, Wardak said.
Civilian casualties caused by international forces have eroded support for Karzai and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan more than seven years since the Taliban's removal.