US tactics 'boosting al-Qaeda' in Iraq

[sabra]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/US-tactics-boosting-alQaeda-in-Iraq/2006/10/30/1162056892159.html

US tactics 'boosting al-Qaeda' in Iraq

Sunni radicalised by brutal US tactics and disillusioned mainstream insurgents are swelling the ranks of al-Qaeda, a moderate Sunni politician said.

Saleh Mutlaq, whose Iraqi National Dialogue group supports the US-backed political process, said al-Qaeda's growing control of strongholds at the heart of the country's Sunni insurgency is paving the way for an Islamic fundamentalist state in western and central Iraq and even the capital Baghdad.

"In the beginning it was a percentage that did not exceed two to four per cent of the total resistance," Mutlaq said in an interview in Amman.

"Now al-Qaeda's growth is at the expense of the nationalist resistance."

...

"American prisons have become the school for suicide bombers and transformed many prisoners into al-Qaeda elements when they were not before," Mutlaq said.