Beyond the ridge where the Zagros Mountains divide Iran and Iraq, several hundred Islamic militants vanished into the early spring snow. On the eve of the Iraq war in March, a barrage of U.S. cruise missiles and a sweep by thousands of Kurdish soldiers cleared the fighters of Ansar al-Islam from mountain strongholds of northeast Iraq from where they had plagued the Kurds for years. Now, there are signs that the group, suspected to have links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, is coming back. “We are intercepting reports that elements of Ansar al-Islam are becoming active again,” said Barham Salih, prime minister of the eastern sector of the Kurds’ autonomous region in northern Iraq. Full Story
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