This surprising statistic — that only 60-80 foreign fighters are entering Iraq every month — appears in a NYT story about the Bush administration’s attitudes toward Saudi Arabia:

Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

If an average of 35 Saudis are entering Iraq per month to fight the US and the Shiites, then something has indeed changed in Iraq. It was reported just the other day that we and our allies have killed over 5000 Saudis in Iraq since the beginning of the war. It would appear that either one of these estimates is wrong, or Iraq might be running out of foreign volunteers to fight the US.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 8:36 am and is filed under General, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.