Jihadists, weapons moving from Iraq to Syria: Baghdad

Feb 11, 2012 |

Baghdad

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Jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria, as are weapons being sent to opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, Iraq's deputy interior minister said on Saturday.

Assad has been attempting to crush an uprising against his rule since March 2011, and thousands of people have been killed.

"We have intelligence information that a number of Iraqi jihadists went to Syria," Adnan al-Assadi said, adding that "weapons smuggling is still ongoing" from Iraq to Syria.

"The weapons are transported from Baghdad to Nineveh (province), and the prices of weapons in Mosul (the province's capital) are higher now because they are being sent to the opposition in Syria," Assadi said.

He said that the price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle has risen from between $100 and $200 to between $1000 and $1500.

"The weapons are being smuggled from Mosul through the Rabia crossing to Syria, as members of the same families live on both sides of the border," he said.

And "there is some smuggling through a crossing near Abu Kamal," he said, referring to a Syrian city.

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