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Sunni-Shiite religious war in Iraq feared
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-10 21:07

Having heard enough, a plainclothes security agent then stepped out of the crowd and ordered the reporter to cease questioning mosque-goers — one more symptom of official nervousness over the role Jordanians play next door in Iraq.

No one knows how many Jordanians and other foreigners have joined Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq or other elements of the Sunni Muslim insurgency. A Saudi Arabian intelligence report, cited by researchers of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, estimates 3,000 of some 30,000 fighters are non-Iraqis. Algerians, Syrians and Yemenis predominate, it says.

Their importance outweighs their numbers. Foreigners are believed responsible for most of Iraq's shocking suicide bombings, and are openly trying to provoke war between the country's Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The sectarian antagonisms may deepen with Iraq's Oct. 15 constitutional referendum.

An all-out civil war in Iraq could further inflame Sunni extremists elsewhere. More militants among Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi sect, who practice an austere and radical brand of Islam, might try to aid Iraq's minority Sunnis.

"I'd expect the Saudis to get a lot of petitions from Wahhabists demanding that they get out of the way if young men want to go to Iraq and fight," said W. Andrew Terrill, a Mideast expert at the U.S. Army War College.

The Jordanians say they work hard to keep outside men and money — both from Iraqi exiles in Jordan and Jordanian sympathizers — from reaching the insurgency. Sixty-three people are now on trial in four cases in Jordan for allegedly recruiting for, financing or taking part in the Iraq insurgency, prosecutors say.
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