January 14, 2005: US Intelligence Concludes Iraq Has Become the New Main Training Ground for Terrorists

The National Intelligence Council, the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the US intelligence community, issues a report concluding, “Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists.” [Washington Post, 1/15/2005] In May, the CIA will report that Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in al-Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat. [New York Times, 6/22/2005]