A captured suicide bomber who didn't die during his attack, but received burns over 70% of his body, led to some of the most recent captures of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi aides, including Abu Omar al-Kurdi, Zarqawi's top bomb making aide.

Ahmed Abdullah al-Shayea, a Saudi national, is also responsible for the rumors of Zarqawi's capture and then release by Iraqi police.

Newsweek has a 6 page article entitled "Iraq: Unmasking the Insurgents" on the background behind the insurgency, Saddam's orders for the rebels and some video of the interrogation of al-Shayea. Well worth reading!

To understand how the breakthrough arrests of al-Shayea, al-Kurdi and other jihadists can be exploited, however, first you need a sense of how a growing array of soldiers and security men from Saddam's devastated military, members of his old Baathist regime, rebellious desert tribesmen, fierce nationalists, common thugs and a relatively few itinerant fanatics from around the Muslim world have come together to challenge American power and all it stands for in Iraq. Interviews with guerrilla veterans of the Iraqi war, tribal leaders and Baathists, as well as American, Coalition and Iraqi officials, make it clear this is not one insurgency, but many.

The article concludes that the majority of the suicide bombers are young Saudi nationals.

According to [Gen. John DeFreitas III, head of American military intelligence in Iraq], most of those suicide bombers whose identities have been ascertainable in the last six months were from Saudi Arabia. The typical profile is much like Ahmed al-Shayea's, twentysomethings and even teenagers from comfortable middle-class families.

Tipped by: California Yankee

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