In a major new study, the CIA's National Intelligence Council says Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, officials at the CIA director's intelligence think-tank said today.
Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."
Low's comments came during a rare public briefing by the NIC on its report of significant global trends looking out as far as 2020. But within the 119-page report is a startling frank evaluation of Iraq's place as a breeding ground for the new generation of Islamic terrorists, an evaluation that represents a consensus among terrorist experts throughout the world.
The al Qaeda membership "that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.
"At the moment," said NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."
Congrats dumbass,
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