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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (109707)	8/3/2003 7:53:01 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein. " This is not a new story but is relevant to the subject: <<<<< Philippine terrorists claim link to Iraq By Marc Lerner THE WASHINGTON TIMES CEBU, Philippines — Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein. Top Stories Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly $20,000 a year from supporters in Iraq. "It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people," Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq. The payments, while small, provide additional evidence of a link between Iraq and the Abu Sayyaf — a group with long-standing ties to al Qaeda and its global terror network. The boast of an Iraqi connection was taken seriously after the expulsion of an Iraqi diplomat from Manila last week amid charges he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf by telephone. "Things like this are very difficult to pin down," said a Manila-based Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But it certainly wouldn't surprise me." Iraqi diplomat Husham Hussein was expelled after Philippine officials discovered that he had received a telephone call from an Abu Sayyaf member linked to the Oct. 2 bombing in the southern port city of Zamboanga that killed one American serviceman and badly wounded another. The soldiers were part of a joint training exercise intended to bolster the Philippine military's ability to hunt down the terrorists. A new contingent of 1,700 U.S. troops began arriving in the southern Philippines last month, with plans to put them into combat alongside their Philippine counterparts in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf. That operation is on hold as questions have arisen about whether U.S. participation in combat would violate provisions of the Philippine Constitution. The Abu Sayyaf was founded more than a decade ago with help from Jamal Mohammad Khalifa, a brother-in-law of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Several of its members have received explosives training from Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York who is now in prison. Sali, who participated in the 2001 hostage seizure from a dive resort that led to the deaths of two Americans, had claimed support from the Middle East. Reports of links between Middle Eastern terrorists and the Abu Sayyaf, which means "bearer of the sword" in Arabic, have been rife since the group's founding in the late 1980s by Abdurajak Janjalani, born to a Muslim father and Christian mother on Basilan. Janjalani, who was killed in a firefight five years ago, studied in Libya and Saudi Arabia and later fought in Afghanistan alongside men who today form the core of bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Joel Guillo, a hospital worker held hostage for six months by the Abu Sayyaf, said he witnessed the visits by Arab terrorists to the camps. Sali, the Abu Sayyaf commander, said several of those visitors were Iraqis. Mr. Guillo was held along with Guillermo Sobero, an American tourist, and Gracia and Martin Burnham, American missionaries who were taken from a dive resort May 27, 2001. Mr. Sobero was beheaded the following month, and Mr. Burnham was killed last year by his captors during a military rescue operation that freed his wife. Sali told a reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer that weapons for the Abu Sayyaf were being provided by unnamed contacts in the Middle East. The weapons, he said, were transshipped through Cambodia and Vietnam, then to Malaysia and on to the southern Philippines. That the Abu Sayyaf needed outside aid baffled some observers who pointed out that the terrorists received a windfall after their April 23, 2000, kidnapping of 21 persons — eight Europeans, two South Africans, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos — from a resort in neighboring Malaysia. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has long meddled in Philippine affairs, gave the Abu Sayyaf $20 million in ransom money — called "development aid" — to release the hostages. Much of the money reportedly was siphoned off by middlemen who helped negotiate the hostage release. The remainder was squandered by the Abu Sayyaf on speedboats and arms, leaving ragtag units like Sali's destitute. While estimates of the number of full-time committed Abu Sayyaf guerrillas vary, the Philippine military puts their strength at about 200, down from more than 1,000 at the height of their kidnapping sprees. Many of those fighters have retreated from Basilan to Jolo, an island farther south where U.S. troops were to go into combat. >>>>> washtimes.com

To: GST who wrote (109707)	8/3/2003 8:05:14 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You condemn a lot of stuff. It wasn't against an immediate threat, it was against one that could be spawned. Then it's too late.

To: GST who wrote (109707)	8/3/2003 9:54:55 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"I condemn deliberate misinformation." Why do you not regularly condemn your self then? "To say that we were threatened by an Iraqi connection to terror groups is misinformation." There you go again....... Iraq Yields Al-Qaeda Information, AFP Says, Citing U.S. General July 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is gaining intelligence on the al-Qaeda terror network as a result of military operations in Iraq, Agence France-Presse cited the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, as saying today. The information is helping U.S. authorities to understand the organization and to hunt for its leaders, Myers told reporters during a visit to Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military's headquarters in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. Before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March, the military knew that the Ansar al-Islam group, which has ties to al-Qaeda, was operating in northeastern Iraq, Myers was cited as saying by AFP. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. is denying the terrorists sanctuary, training sites and access to weapons of mass destruction, he said. Banned weapons, which were cited by the U.S. and U.K. as a reason for the war, have yet to be found. Myers said the war in Iraq has complemented the fight against al-Qaeda and terrorism, rather than diverting resources from it. Myers is on a tour of the Middle East and Asia. Myers was scheduled to meet later today with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss the disarmament of about 100,000 fighters from Afghan militias and their reintegration into society, AFP reported. quote.bloomberg.com. .....Iraq told UN inspectors that Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces. However, two defectors from Iraqi intelligence stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp. The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire. The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time...... globalsecurity.org .....Other militant groups operating inside Iraq include Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida-linked organization whose camp in northern Iraq suffered devastating attacks from U.S. forces early in the war. Ansar al-Islam appears to be regrouping, possibly buoyed by members coming from Iran or elsewhere after fleeing during the fighting, Abizaid said...... theolympian.com .....Palestinian Liberation Front leader Abu Abbas was captured by American forces on the outskirts of Baghdad and is in U.S. custody..... .....President Bush mentioned Abbas in an October speech in which he outlined the United States' argument for removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. "Iraq has ... provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger," Bush said. "And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace." The PLF faction under Abbas was a conduit for Saddam's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service reported earlier this year that Israel captured several Palestinians who trained at a PLF camp in Iraq and were told by Abbas to attack an Israeli airport and other targets..... foxnews.com .....Ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, Clinton Iraqi policy adviser Laurie Mylroie, former Iraqi nuclear chief Khidir Hamza and émigré Iraqi army colonel Sabah Khodada are among those who say that Saddam Hussein used Salman Pak to instruct terrorists in bomb making, assassination, and hijacking...... nationalreview.com Baghdad, Iraq - Abu Nidal, the Palestinian mastermind of some of the 20th century's most notorious terrorist attacks, spent the final years of his life in a small Baghdad house..... .....Iraq had never admitted to sheltering Abu Nidal, whose name was synonymous with international terrorism in the 1970s and '80s. The State Department once branded him its most-wanted terrorist, and he was at the top of the CIA's "must-get" list for decades. By the mid-1990s, his notoriety faded as Osama bin Laden and others espousing a more lethal brand of terrorism rose to prominence. Abu Nidal was a Palestinian revolutionary turned gun-for-hire. In the 1970s and '80s, his Fatah Revolutionary Council was blamed for the deaths of 900 people in 20 countries. Among his most brazen acts of terror were simultaneous attacks on the Israeli El Al airline ticket counters at the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985, which killed 19 people and injured 120. Abu Nidal - a nom de guerre that means "father of the struggle" - was a master of disguise, rarely photographed and said to have undergone plastic surgery several times..... newsday.com Prez Bush - State of the Union Address Jan 29, 2002 .....So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk. And America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it..... ....Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction..... Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror..... States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world..... We can't stop short. If we stop now -- leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked -- our sense of security would be false and temporary..... State of the Union Address Jan 28, 2003 .....Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda..... Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's....links to terrorist groups...... VP Cheney July 31, 2003 ".....In Iraq, a dictator with a deep and bitter hatred of the United States, who built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and cultivated ties to terrorists, is no more....." whitehouse.gov Prez Bush....... July 1, 2003 "Also present in Iraq are terrorist groups seeking to spread chaos and to attack American and coalition forces. Among these terrorists are members of Ansar al-Islam, which operated in Iraq before the war and is now active in the Sunni heartland of the country. We suspect that the remnants of a group tied to al Qaeda associate al-Zarqawi are still in Iraq, waiting for an opportunity to strike. We're also beginning to see foreign fighters enter Iraq." whitehouse.gov September 11 report alludes to Iraq-al Qaeda meeting The 850-page congressional report on September 11 intelligence failures says that a key terrorist organizer may have met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the months before the attack...... washingtontimes.com May 17, 2003 "With the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have removed allies of al Qaeda, cut off sources of terrorist funding, and made certain that no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's regime." whitehouse.gov May 1, 2003 "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. (Applause.)" whitehouse.gov May 2, 2003 "As a result of the bravery and skill of our Armed Forces and coalition forces, the war on terror is much longer down the road because of what happened in Iraq. You see, the al Qaeda no longer have a ally in the regime in Iraq. Terrorists no longer have a funding source in the regime of Iraq. One thing is for certain: Terrorists will no longer have a source of weapons of mass destruction in the regime that used to be in Iraq, because the regime that used to be in Iraq is no longer." (Applause.) whitehouse.gov August 01, 2003 Bush: A free Iraq will lead to a more secure United States .....Regarding alleged ties between Hussein's government and the al Qaeda terrorist network, Bush said, "It's going to take time for us to gather the evidence and analyze the mounds of evidence -- literally the miles of documents -- that we have uncovered."...... dcmilitary.com He added that he's "confident the truth will come out."