Nevertheless, these numbers pale beside those for the Iraqis themselves. By all reports,
the insurgency remains largely homegrown. US experts and top level Iraqi officials
estimated in November 2005 that at least 90% of the fighters were Iraqi and the total
might be closer to 94% to 96%.. Coalition sources also indicated that only 3.8% of some
Cordesman: Iraq & Foreign Volunteers 11/18/05 Page 3
13,300 detainees held in the fall of 2005 were foreign, and this percentage was lower than
it had been in the early winter of 2005. Major General Rick Lynch in the Coalition
command in Baghdad stated in October that only 376 of the detainees taken in 2005 were
foreign: 78 Egyptians, 66 Syrians, 41 Sudanese, 32 Saudis, 1 American, and 1 Briton.
These numbers had not changed significantly as of November 1, although the total
number of detainees had risen to 13,900. (Out of this total, 5,569 had already been held
for six months, 3,801 for a year, and 229 for two years. The total include some 752 at
Fort Suse in northeast Iraq, 113 at Camp Cropper and 4,788 at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad,
and 6,780 at Camp Bucca in Southeastern Iraq. There were an additional 1,136 detainees
in various brigade and internment facilities as of November 9, 2005.) ii I
These figures mark a sharp contrast to some allegations that the insurgency was being
driven by large numbers of foreign volunteers, and that a flood of new volunteers came in
2005. As Major General Joseph J. Taluto, the commander of the US Army’s 42nd Infantry
Division, which was based in Tikrit put it, “The foreign fighters attacks tend to be more
spectacular, but the local national, the Saddamists, the Iraqi rejectionists, are much more
problematic.iii
