Following is correspondence between Arab Media Watch chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi and the diplomatic correspondent for a British national daily broadsheet newspaper, over the use of sources regarding the percentage of fighters entering Iraq via Syria.

From Nashashibi, 28 October 2008:

Your article "Syrian minister Walid al-Muallem denounces US raid during UK visit" states that the Syrian border is "the route in for 90 per cent of Iraq's foreign jihadists" (28 October 2008). I'd be very grateful if you could tell me the source for this figure. Thank you for your time and consideration.

From correspondent, 31 October 2008:

Apologies for the belated response, I hope I am not too late to help as I see you've put out an update in this issue already.
 
The statistic comes from an analysis of the documents seized from the so-called Sinjar cell.
 
This New York Times piece contains a lot of the details and statistics gleaned from the documents.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/middleeast/22fighters.html?pagewanted=print
 
There is also a study of them on the Combatting Terrorism Centre website if you want to look.
 
There's no suggestion, I understand, that the fighters were aided by the Syrian authorities, simply that the country was the route in.

From Nashashibi, 31 October 2008:

Many thanks for your response. My concern is that your article states as fact that the Syrian border is "the route in for 90 per cent of Iraq's foreign jihadists." No source is provided. However, the New York Times article you refer to treats that statistic as a US claim, saying: "The insurgent cell raided by American troops was believed to have been smuggling up to 90 percent of all foreign fighters into Iraq, military officials say" (emphasis added). I believe that such a serious statistic warranted similar sourcing in your article. I'd very much appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks again for your time and consideration.

From correspondent, 31 October 2008:

I was trying to make life a bit easier by sending you an article on the report rather than the whole thing. It was the report I used not the nytimes article.

I did not state my source because the number is a very widely accepted one. If I believe it were controversial I would not have done so. The number is arrived at mostly because of the documentary evidence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq's own records which have been independently verified. If you wish, I am happy to provide you with a link to the original documents in Arabic or an English translation.

The documents contain the biographies of 603 individuals who came via Syria Iraq as foreign fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The US military had an estimate of how many foreign fighters there were in Iraq and the 603 constitute 90 percent of that. So it is not that the US military claim 90 percent of foreign fighters came from Syria, it is that al-Qaeda's documents indicate that 603 fighters came through Syria, a figure which accounts for 90 percent of the estimated total foreign fighters in Iraq. If there are fewer foreign fighters overall than the US thought, then the percentage coming from Syria would be even higher than 90 percent. If there are more, it would be lower. There is a difference, albeit a subtle one.

I accept your desire to see where the statistic came from, but not the premise behind your query, which I assume stems from your mandate "to strive for objective coverage of Arab issues in the British media." There are foreign fighters in Iraq and whatever their number (and we know from alQaeda in Iraq itself that there have been at least 603), they come from somewhere. If it isn't from Syria, it is another of Iraq's neighbours. So I would not agree that my failing to source that statement is a failure of objectivity. In fact, I note you cite my article in defence of Syria's efforts to stop foreign fighters using their territory in your most recent backgrounder.

I have now explained as fully as I can and I hope my answer is of use to you. If we disagree, we will have to agree to do so.

http://ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf

Route to Iraq

Most of the fighters in the Sinjar Records do not explain the route they took to Iraq. Furthermore, the fighters that did enter information about their route were very inconsistent in their methodology. Some fighters included their home country as a stop, others did not. Some included "Iraq" as a stop on their way to

19 Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

28

An example of this is Bader Shourie, record number 90. NMEC‐2007‐657770.

29

Figure 14, noting the routes fighters took to Iraq lists the country of origin, stopover nations, and Syria. The "Syria" category includes mostly Syrian fighters, but includes several others that only listed Syria

Iraq. Some fighters listed Syria as a stop on their route to Iraq, while others seemed to think it was assumed and did not mention Syria despite providing the name of their coordinator in Syria.

28 Meanwhile, it is not clear what fighters considered a "stop." For some, that may have simply been a country transited on the way to Iraq; for others, it may have required a more extensive layover.

Despite the data problem in assessing the route fighters took to Iraq, it is clear that routes differed dramatically from country to country. Of the 63 records of Saudis that described their route to Iraq, 47.6% listed a direct route from Saudi into Syria, while another 36.5% (23) noted that they traveled first to Jordan, then to Syria. Libyan fighters seemed to follow an established path to Syria. Of the 52 Libyan fighters that listed their route to Iraq, 50 traveled first to Egypt, while 2 flew directly to Syria. From Egypt, 84.2% (43) flew directly to Syria while 13.4% (7) went to Jordan and then entered Syria. The Sinjar Records also hint at an established pathway from Morocco through Turkey into Syria. Of the 12 Moroccan fighters that described their route to Syria, ten flew directly to Turkey while the other two crossed first into Spain before traveling to Turkey.

Figure 14: Route to Iraq

29

20 Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

30

Muhammad Muqaddam, "Facts Disclosed by Fundamentalists," Al-Hayah, December 8, 2005.

31

Malfi al-Harbi, "Al-Shayi, a Victim that was Lured to Iraq," Al-Riyad, November 21, 2007.

32

Interview with Abu Umar, Al Arabiyah 1905, December 7, 2007

33

http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0805/roadtoiraq0805.pdf Global Terror Alert does not list the original website, but it was likely the Syrian Islamic Forum that was hosted at www.nnuu.org during 2005.

The Sinjar Records do not offer much information about the fighters' travel once in Syria. One clue may be the disproportionate number of Syrian fighters that listed Dayr al Zawr (34.3%) as their hometown. There is anecdotal evidence that Dayr al Zawr was an important transit point for jihadis hoping to infiltrate Iraq, at least until 2006. A December 2005 report in Al Hayah tracked a group of Algerian and Saudi fighters trying to cross from Dayr al Zawr, through the border town of Albu Kamal, and then into Iraq.30 Likewise, a young Saudi that was captured in Iraq recounted how he arrived there after using the same pathway from Dayr al Zawr, via minibus to Albu Kamal and by foot across the border to al Qa'im.31 Abu Umar, a Palestinian fighter who crossed into Iraq to train al Qa'ida troops also has described transiting Dayr al Zawr on his way to al Qa'im in Iraq.32 Al Muhajir al Islami, a frequent poster on Syrian dissident web forums explained that the Dayr al Zawr section of the border was particularly easy to cross because of the links between tribes on either side of the border.33

The Sinjar Records were captured far north of Albu Kamal in Syria and al Qa'im in Iraq, which suggests that the smuggling route for fighters into Iraq has shifted north. Nonetheless, the city of Dayr al Zawr may still be an important logistics hub for fighters hoping to enter Iraq. Dayr al Zawr sits on the road north from Damascus and East from Aleppo, which makes it a logical location for a logistics base, whether heading further east to the Iraqi city of al Qa'im or north to Sinjar.

From Nashashibi, 3 November 2008:

I appreciate your thorough reply, and want to assure you that neither I nor Arab Media Watch are accusing you of being biased. As you pointed out, we quoted you in a favourable light in our document on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Our intention is to investigate the source of the statistic and its accuracy, not to question your professionalism - if it seemed that way to you, I apologise.
 
However, having read your reply, I still believe that you should've sourced your statistic because it's not a fact. You cite the Combating Terrorism Centre as your source, but the document you pointed me to states the following caveats:
 
"The CTC cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of these records, except to confirm they were authorized for release by the US government, which is why these records are presented in their entirety. The CTC does not redact or classify information."
 
"Readers should be aware that analyzing data captured on a battlefield is fraught with risk. Some of the personnel records were filled out incompletely or improperly, some may have been lost by al‐Qa'ida's personnel in Iraq, and some may have been accidentally lost or destroyed by US forces. The Sinjar Records are an astounding testimony to al‐Qa'ida's importation of fighters to Iraq, but they are an inherently imperfect record. Readers and researchers should be wary of conclusions drawn solely on the basis of these records."
 
Furthermore, you pasted below your email:

"Route to Iraq: Most of the fighters in the Sinjar Records do not explain the route they took to Iraq."

You say you didn't state your source "because the number is a very widely accepted one," but the other mainstream news outlets who reported the statistic at the time of its release (namely the New York Times and the Independent) both state the source.
 
The New York Times put it like this:
 
"Surrounded by desolate prairie and desert, Sinjar has long been a way station for foreign fighters. The insurgent cell raided by American troops was believed to have been smuggling up to 90 percent of all foreign fighters into Iraq, military officials say." (Richard A. Oppel, November 22, 2007)
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/middleeast/22fighters.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaper
 
The Independent put it like this:
 
"The cell at Sinjar is said by the Americans to have been responsible for almost 90 per cent of foreign troops smuggled into Iraq." (Kim Sengupta, 23 November 2007)
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/most-iraqi-recruits-are-saudi-or-libyan-760095.html

Lastly, you said that "al-Qaeda's documents indicate that 603 fighters came through Syria, a figure which accounts for 90 percent of the estimated total foreign fighters in Iraq." Besides the aforementioned caveats, this estimate is, as you said, from the US military.
 
I agree with you that there are foreign fighters in Iraq, and that a proportion of them may come via Syria, but the statistic of 90% isn't a fact, it's unreliable, and the source is one of the main parties to the conflict. As such, I still believe, as do the other journalists who reported the statistic, that the source should be stated. I do hope you'll consider the points I've made.