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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (296)	9/4/2002 1:53:34 AM
From: JEB	Respond to of 8683

Iraq seeks to distance regime from Abu Nidal By James Drummond in Cairo, Carola Hoyos in Washington and agencies Published: August 21 2002 21:29 \| Last Updated: August 21 2002 21:29 Iraq on Wednesday stepped up efforts to distance itself from the life and times of Sabri al-Banna, better known as Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian militant leader. Baghdad, listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, on Wedneday fielded Tahir al-Jaboush, one of its intelligence chiefs, to produce evidence that Abu Nidal was dead and to connect him to an unidentified foreign country. Countering accusations that Iraqi agents had assassinated Abu Nidal, Mr Jaboush said on Wednesday the fugitive Palestinian militant had shot himself in his apartment in Baghdad as he was about to be taken away for questioning. He said Abu Nidal had entered Iraq illegally in 1999 from Iran, using a fake Yemeni passport. When tracked down by Iraqi security, he went into another room and shot himself in the head, Mr Jaboush said. Wednesday's exercise appeared to be an attempt to distance the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, from its former protégé. Abu Nidal is held responsible for the deaths of dozens of civilians during the 1970s and 1980s and for attacks on Arab officials who supported any contact with Israel. "He was not effective, didn't enjoy wide support and didn't have a large group that could do anything," Mr Jaboush said on Wednesday of Abu Nidal's later years. In Washington, Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, welcomed Abu Nidal's death, describing him as "one of the most craven and despicable terrorists in the world . . . he will not be missed". Despite Mr Jaboush's assertion that Iraqi authorities were about to arrest Abu Nidal when he committed suicide, Mr Fleischer and Donald Rumsfeld, US secretary of defence, repeated US criticisms of Baghdad's links with terrorism. "The fact that Iraq gave safe haven to Abu Nidal demonstrates the Iraqi regime's complicity in global terror," Mr Fleischer said. Mr Rumsfeld, referring to al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq, said: "In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that . . . exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country." Iraqi officials on Wednesday showed weapons, booby-trapped suitcases and coded documents found in Abu Nidal's apartment which they said proved a certain country was sponsoring him. However, they would not name the country - which some Palestinian officials suggested was the US - or confirm the exact time of Abu Nidal's death. On Tuesday, Kuwait denied suggestions it had had any contact with Abu Nidal. Atif Abu Bakr, a formerly close associate of Abu Nidal's in the Fatah Revolutionary Council, revealed earlier in the week that the terrorist leader had planned to kill Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in 1989. The attack was called off at the last moment, Mr Abu Bakr told the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper. Mr Abu Bakr, speaking from an undisclosed location, also said that Abu Nidal had ordered the execution of Alec Collett, a Briton kidnapped in Lebanon, following a US raid on the compound of Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, in 1986. news.ft.com