A top U.S. counter-terrorism official says foreign fighters have flocked to Iraq, and if they survive the battles there, they will pose a danger to their native countries when they return home.
Ambassador Dell Dailey, who visited key nations after the U.S. discovered a mass of computer files inside Iraq last fall, talks with Steve Inskeep about U.S. efforts to reduce the flow of foreign fighters entering Iraq, and about the threat that al-Qaida poses nearly seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Dailey says the 800 electronic files that were recovered identify individuals — originating from 22 countries — who entered Iraq through Syria as foreign fighters between August 2006 and August '07.
Dailey visited the home nations of those individuals — nations with the most fighters included Saudi Arabia and Libya — to ask for support and get clues as to why they became suicide bombers.
Iraq suffered the largest number of terrorist attacks of any nation in 2007, according to the State Department's latest report on global terrorism. The report was released Wednesday.
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