Professor Paul Rogers told delegates at the Royal United Services Institute that the Iraq war was a gift for al-Qaeda, providing them with the perfect urban terrorist training ground.
He told the conference on politics and terrorism:
“Iraq is very slowly becoming something of a Jihadist training zone for a new generation of Jihadists, rather like Afghanistan was in the 1980s against the Soviets. You get young Jihadists from Afghanistan travelling to Iraq, getting combats training against the American troops in urban environments and then taking their skills elsewhere. The real gift to al-Qaeda is a long-term urban combat training zone, not a rural one as previously. That is going to come back and haunt us over the next 20 to 30 years.