Foreign Fighters Shifting to Afghanistan from Iraq

International salafist militants are shifting back to Afghanistan. The interesting point seems to be that as the war in Iraq has shifted into a civil war, Iraqi Sunni sectarian extremists have asserted control over the insurgency and only want foreigners as anti-Shiite suicide bomb fodder.

Numbers of foreign fighters flowing to Iraq are decreasing, says the head of France's DST, and they are shifting to Afghanistan.

Although the L.A. Times article says salafists who don't want to die in Iraq as martyrs are now headed to Afghanistan, the article also says that increasing numbers of Arab militants heading to Afghanistan has led to the introduction of suicide bombings, a tactic apparently not preferred by locals. (I have no idea why not.)

The article is also interesting in the role it ascribes to Syria:

in the direction of terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Muslim world:The movement of fighters to Iraq began to decline last year as insurgent leaders in Syria, who serve as a conduit to the combat zone, began screening volunteers aggressively, turning them back unless they had strong military skills or were eager to carry out suicide attacks, European anti-terrorism officials said.

Some newcomers were redirected to training camps in North Africa. Others were told to launch attacks in Europe, said a senior Italian anti-terrorism official. He described the confessions of Milan-based Tunisian and Moroccan suspects who got to Syria, but then were sent back: "They said the representative of Zarqawi's group really grilled them: 'Do you have military experience? Here's an AK-47; do you know how to use it? Have you ever fired a mortar? If not, we don't want you.' "

Instead, they were directed to bomb a basilica in Bologna because it displays a painting of the prophet Muhammad as depicted in Dante's Inferno, investigators say. Moroccan and Italian police broke up the alleged plot and arrested the group this spring.

There seems to be a distinctly European focus in the article. I'm not sure whether U.S. sources would agree with all of its conclusions about militants' shift in focus, but the information on what happens in Syria is more specific than I have heard before.