London, September 26
Three British citizens who travelled to Iraq to fight the coalition forces have joined Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s terrorist group, currently holding the Liverpool engineer Ken Bigley, a media report claimed today.
Quoting a resistance commander, The Sunday Times said the Britons were accepted by followers of Zarqawi, the most ruthless terrorist leader in Iraq, on the recommendation of “clerics abroad”.
Abu Muawiya, who spent eight months in Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad (TWJ) group, claimed it had attracted scores of fighters from other Arab nations, the paper reported.
“Three Muslim British citizens are among a handful of non-Arab foreigners who have joined Zarqawi in his war against the coalition forces,” Muawiya was quoted as saying.
Besides the Britons, a number of Taliban and Chechens were said to be in the group which beheaded Bigley’s American companions Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong last week.
The claim followed British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s remarks last week that Iraq had become the “crucible of global terrorism”.
— PTI
