IRAQ’S SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM
Iraq is formally listed as one of the US’s state sponsors of terrorism. However, neither the FBI or the CIA have been able to link Saddam or any Iraqi to the events of 11 September. Attempts to draw a link between the two have produced the following results.
• Defecting intelligence officers have reported seeing non-Iraqi fundamentalists being trained at Salman Pak, an Iraqi intelligence camp 20 miles south of Baghdad.
• Iraq has the fuselage of an old Tupolev 154 airliner, which is used for hijacking training in Salman Pak. It was witnessed by Charles Duelfer, former deputy director of UNSCOM, who said the Iraqis claimed it was for counter-terrorist training. The UN, he said, “automatically took out the word ‘counter’”
• Osama bin Laden is said to have been a frequent visitor to the Iraqi embassy in Kartoum while al Qaeda was based in Lebanon.
• Iraq had harboured the Abu Nidal organisation, prior to the terrorist’s reported suicide in August 2002
• Iraq is harbouring the Palestinian Liberation Front of Abu Abbas
• Iraq has offered to pay $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Dec 1998 Osama bin Laden reported to have met Farouk Hijazi, Iraqi’s ambassador to Turkey and an intelligence officer (Information from the Wisconian Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a Washington-based think tank. Gary Milhollin, its director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Wisconian Law School, gave evidence to US International Relations Committee on 4 Oct 2001).
Apr 2001 Mohammed Atta, the lead 11 September hijacker, is said to have met Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi agent, in Prague, according to Czech intelligence.
Sep 2001 US intelligence officials quoted in Washington Post saying that an Iraqi intelligence official had met Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, one year previously.
Sep 2001 Mr Hijazi is pulled out of Ankara by Baghdad.
Mar 2002 The New Yorker magazine runs an extensive article linking Al Qaeda to Iraq, saying its members are relocating from Afghanistan to Northern Iraq.
May 2002 CIA and FBI officials say that, after an exhaustive search, no evidence has been found linking Saddam to 11 September. |
