Saudi fighters head Iraq insurgency

Dubai: Hundreds of Saudi militants are either on trial or detained in Iraq for insurgency, officials said yesterday amid a report that Saudis constitute nearly 45 per cent of the foreign fighters in the country.

"About 160 Saudi nationals arrested in Iraq have been tried while hundreds of others await trial," Iraq's national security adviser Muwaffaq Al Rubaie told the Okaz daily in Saudi Arabia.

"Many were killed in suicide attacks," he said, claiming that foreign militants infiltrate Iraq "from a neighbouring country," in an apparent reference to Syria.

Al Rubaie's statements concided with a Los Angeles Times report that said 45 per cent of foreign militants fighting US and Iraqi troops came from Saudi Arabia. The report said nearly half of the 135 foreigners in US detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, and that 50 per cent of them are suicide bombers.

The Saudi government said it is doing everything to stop the bloodshed. "Saudis are being misused. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are," said General Mansour Al Turki, spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry.