Iraq's Al-Qaeda suicide bombers heading towards Afghanistan, Pak

London, May 28 (ANI): Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has told The Independent in an interview that foreign would-be militants and suicide bombers are now heading towards Afghanistan and Pakistan to spread their mayhem from there.

According to Zebari, Al-Qaeda is struggling to launch frequent suicide attacks in Iraq for the first time because of a shortage of foreign volunteers.

Interrogation of prisoners and intercepted messages revealed that local al-Qa'ida commanders are complaining about the lack of foreigners to carry out suicide missions as they had done to devastating effect in the past.

"The shortage of suicide bombers is because Islamic fundamentalists are more interested in Afghanistan and Pakistan these days, the Americans are withdrawing from Iraq and al-Qa'ida's networks have been disrupted by ourselves and the Americans," Zebari told The Independent.

Zebari believes that al-Qaeda is finding it much more difficult to find safe havens in parts of Iraq dominated by the Sunni Arab community which turned out to vote en masse in the general election in March.

The use of suicide bombers from outside Iraq - the majority coming from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Algeria and Morocco - played a central role in destabilising the Iraqi governments which followed Saddam Hussein.

Close to 500,000 people have fallen victim to suicide attacks in Iraq since 2003, according to statistics. (ANI)