Not on CNN

I would think that tis would be a relatively big story. The diary of an alleged 'jihadist' certainly got my attention.

The following is but a snippet of the article:

Military officials say Mohammed Kadir Hussen's odyssey from his hometown, Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the battlegrounds of Iraq -- a journey outlined in a diary seized when he was arrested, a document now known as "the Book" -- provides a glimpse into what remains one of the murkiest aspects of the Iraq insurgency: the role of foreign jihadists, or so-called holy warriors of Islam.

" 'The Book' talked about the jihad: how the jihad was going to happen whether Saddam Hussein survived the war or not," said Col. David A. Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which occupies a great swath of western Iraq and seized the young Saudi and his unusual travelogue. "People were coming from all over to fight and kill Westerners."

So many foreign fighters are said to have congregated in Qusaybah, a longtime smuggling hub, that the military nicknamed it "the jihad Super Bowl," Teeples said.

The Army says the primary threat in Iraq remains loyalists of the former regime. The foreign contingent may represent no more than 5 percent to 10 percent of the overall insurgent force of up to 5,000 people, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad.

But commanders also say the foreign fighters' impact has been significant and has probably yielded the bulk of what has become perhaps the insurgents' most potent weapon -- suicide bombers. However, the Army adds that no successful suicide bomber has yet to be positively identified.

Although Saddam's alleged relationship with al-Qaida was one of the justifications for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, no definitive operational link has yet been demonstrated between the Islamic militants and Saddam's decidedly secular government.

But with borders porous in the wake of the invasion, highly motivated jihadists - eager to confront Americans on Arab soil - have infiltrated the country, U.S. commanders concede. These shadowy forces have largely remained under the radar screen as the Army concentrates on cells of Saddam loyalists, commanders say.

"Perhaps with all the focus on former regime elements, some kind of screen is now down, and those terrorists who want to fight Americans are coming in," said Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine of the 82nd Airborne Division, which patrols the Fallujah zone, a hotbed of the insurgency.

There is no way to measure the influx of foreign combatants. They continue to arrive despite operations breaking down what Army officers call "rat lines" of support for jihadists arriving via Syria in the west and Iran in the east. In the last two weeks, the Army says, an Iranian and an Afghan were arrested in Baghdad while trying to put a roadside bomb in place, and a Jordanian with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher was taken into custody. Several Egyptians and a suspected Yemeni extremist were picked up in Fallujah.

Last month, President Bush himself announced the capture of Hassan Ghul, who U.S. officials say may be the first confirmed al-Qaida operative arrested in Iraq. Ghul was allegedly a courier for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - and, like Ghul, a Pakistani.

U.S. commanders say it is extremely difficult to determine if the detained foreign fighters are linked to al-Qaida or other terror organizations, such as Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish extremist group suspected of having connections to the twin suicide attacks last week at Kurdish political party headquarters in northern Iraq that killed more than 100 people. Some of those captured boast of international terror affiliations; others deny such ties. Proving or disproving it can be almost impossible.

"No one is walking around with an al-Qaida identity card, as far as I know," said Col. Joe Anderson, who oversaw the occupation of the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas with the 101st Airborne Division, which is returning home after almost a year in Iraq.

Many fighters captured or killed carry no identification whatsoever, so their origins remain murky. In such cases, officials rely on clues such as foreign currency found in their possession or, in the case of prisoners, their accents. Foreign fighters, frequently embracing martyrdom, are also more likely to fight to the death than other insurgents, commanders say.

Many of the foreign jihadists appear to be disaffected young men harboring an abiding hatred of the West, but having little or no previous experience in training camps or the battlefield -- a common profile among Saudis and others who have gravitated to holy war venues such as Afghanistan and Chechnya. This seems to have been the case with Mohammed Kadir Hussen.

"He was a poor Saudi guy without a lot of prospects," said a U.S. military intelligence official familiar with Hussen's travelogue. "He started out wanting to help other Muslims, and it evolved into this jihad."

Army officials agreed to talk in general terms about the young Saudi's life and diary but declined to provide a copy. The document has been translated into English and distributed among intelligence agencies.

U.S. authorities say they have traced efficient networks bringing in foreign jihadists. Middlemen known as "facilitators," mostly Iraqis, help guide the young fighters and direct them to safe houses where they can stay, arrange for basic training and acquire arms. Eventually they are deployed against U.S. forces.

The Army recently detained one such alleged facilitator, Madi Thiab Ruhaybi, an Iraqi man in his 50s known as Abu Mohammed who was captured near the bustling Trebil crossing point on the Iraq-Jordan border.

"Abu Mohammed was kind of a runner, a go-to guy, a guy who gets things done," the military intelligence official said. "He would go to the border and pick someone up, move money from here to there, get weapons - he would make all that happen. He was a mid- to lower-level guy, certainly not a decision-maker.

"If you're the boss, you need someone like Abu Mohammed to go out and do the dirty work. He knows where to go to get weapons. If you need coordination with your buddy in Syria to get foreign fighters in, he's the guy who goes out and makes the connection."

He is the kind of intermediary with whom Hussen probably hooked up when he arrived in Iraq. The fervent Saudi, in his 20s, is believed to have crossed the border in April or May, after Saddam's fall. He arrived first at this border outpost, at the time virtually wide open, officials said, and probably made contact with pro-Saddam hard-liners aiding foreign volunteers.

A marriage of convenience between former regime allies and foreign jihadists has marked the insurgency, U.S. officials say.

"The jihad people who came in had their own agenda. They were not connected to former regime loyalists, but to Islamic extremists," Teeples said. "But as this thing evolved, it became obvious that the best network for anyone coming from outside to fight would be to contact former regime loyalists. Those were the people who knew who to call, where to find safe houses, where to get their hands on money, weapons, transportation. They had intelligence on where the coalition troops were moving convoys, where troops were stationed, where mortars could be set up."

Why hasn't this received any coverage(that I've seen) from the major media outlets? Sure it's not nearly as important as an exposed body part during a national sporting event(heavy sarcasm). But further inquiry into this issue could yield answers to the vexing issue as to the true nature of the 'insurgent's' identities and agendas.

Lives are being lost over these very issues, but the press, by and large has ignored this potentially illuminating story.

With the wild differences in estimates of the numbers of foriegn fighters in Iraq, and just exactly what the nexus is between these foreign fighters/'Saddam loyalists'/and common Iraqi resistance, this would seem a natural issue for an investigative reporter to flesh out.

Maybe I'm giving our press corps too much credit. First to publish trumps thorough investigation and analysis of data. Isn't that right Ms. Miller?