Valhal -- You're welcome. I wasn't sure if his outline covered everything; AL's post helps to fill it out.
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Originally posted by Airbornelawyer
There is another element which Van Steenwyk does not mention, which is the activities of criminal gangs and syndicates, many of which are Ba'athists/former Ba'athists and many of whom got rich through smuggling and bribery related to the Oil-for-Food Program and other schemes.
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Does this need to be dealt with as a law enforcement issue?
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Also, the foreign elements are in some cases not a separate group, but form their own alliances. Some are Islamists looking for a jihad to fight and Americans to kill, some are adventurers and Arab nationalists, some are non-Iraqi Ba'athists who came to join their fellow partisans, and some are ethnic/regional factionalists (such as Iranian Arab Shi'ites and Turks). There is obviously some overlap in some of these categories, but what we also see are some foreign fighters who are a distinct group, and some who are allied with the other groups previously identified.
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Are they different from foreign fighers involved in past wars?