One Hand Clapping
There is solid evidence that Iraq, before Saddam seized power, helped fund ANO's start-up costs. Nidal had represented Fatah, Yasir Arafat's group, in Baghdad. Saddam continued Iraq's ties to ANO, severing them in 1983 to gain American support for his war against Iran. (Saddam invited the ANO back after the war.) Syria, Iraq and Libya supported ANO also, providing money and material support, and sometimes hiring it for dirty jobs.
ANO was a deadly outfit. It killed about 900 people in 20 countries and attacked Arabs whom it didn't consider sufficiently anti-Israeli. In December 1985, the ANO shot up El Al airline counters in Rome and Vienna, an attack I remember well because I lived in Germany at the time, where the attacks got enduring, graphic coverage. Eighteen people died and more than 100 were injured.
Nidal himself was not a very healthy man, reportedly suffering from heart disease and other chronic illnesses. Power politics by Arab countries began freezing ANO out of favor in the late 1980s. Eventually, Abu Nidal set up headquarters in Baghdad, ostensibly because of the medical care available there, but just as likely because only Saddam would have truck with him.
In August 2002, Abu Nidal died in Baghdad of lead poisoning, the 9mm kind. Saddam's government announced Nidal had committed suicide while seriously ill.
The UK Telegraph reported shortly after he died that he had been killed on orders of Saddam Hussein. The reason?
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I have no doubt Saddam did have Nidal bumped off - not because he would not train al Qaeda, but because he did, in a very particular way, and Saddam wanted to eliminate the trail. Via Glenn Reynolds, the Iraq Governing Council says that Nidal in fact did train al Qaeda terrorists - specifically Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, 2001.
Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.
Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.
In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy". ...
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he [Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee] said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
There is ironclad proof that al Qaeda and Saddam were formally allied after 9/11. Osama bin Laden publicly urged Muslims to fight alongside Saddam's forces against the Americans. (I wrote a lot about al Qaeda and Iraq, start here .)
But the sticking point has always been whether al Qaeda and Saddam cooperated with one another before 9/11. The evidence, including this revelation from the IGC, is mounting that they did.
But why would Saddam have Nidal shot because he trained Atta and perhaps other terrorists? Recall that in July-August 2002, the Bush administration began turning its attention in earnest toward Iraq. Janes.com said it confirmed Nidal was killed by Saddamites, then explained,
>>>
The story of the IGC documents needs to be followed closely. If authentic, the documents provide ironclad proof that Saddam was complicit in killing 3,000-plus Americans and other nationalities on Sept. 11, 2001, even to the point of at least co-selecting the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and whatever the fourth target was supposed to be.
The Bush administration never directly claimed such a connection as a justification of the Iraq campaign. But it didn't try to dissuade Americans from believing it, either. At the time, the administration's dissembling was attacked by its opponents as deceptive. But it may now turn out that there were excellent reasons, known to the administration soon after 9/11, to believe Saddam was complicit in al Qaeda's terror activities - and that the administration later had credible, though not conclusive, evidence that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Even so, the real significance of the IGC documents - again, I stress that American agencies have not authenticated them - is not merely providing an ex-post-facto, concrete inclusion of the Iraq campaign into the anti-terror war. It is the web of al Qaeda connections that Iraqi documents will almost certainly reveal, and from what other countries al Qaeda received actual assistance in the form of money, materiel, training or other resources. I'd say at the top of the list is either Syria or Iran, with the other occupying second place.
Another thing a confirmation of the connection will do is completely cut the rug from under France's and Germany's opposition to America in Iraq. Both nations' governments are slimy in their collusion with Saddam over many years. French President Jacques Chirac was personally so much in bed with Saddam that he should be charged with political prostitution. Neither Chirac nor German Chancellor Gerhard Shroder are very secure in their offices; such news cannot improve their standing among their own constituents.
What this means is that Old Europe will be less able to oppose America's next steps in the anti-terror war than before, whatever those steps turn out to be. Iranians opposing the mullah's regime will be likely be emboldened as the mullahs find their apologists in Europe are muted. Syria's dictator Bashar Assad has long been fearful his regime is next on Bush's list; even retroactive additional justification for Iraq's invasion will shake him badly. He may attempt to walk the straight and narrow placate America. That won't be good news for Hezbollah, which relies on Syrian patronage to sustain its anti-Israel terrorism.
Finally, a verified connection between Saddam and 9/11's infamy may drive the Saudi royal family decisively toward crushing al Qaeda within its borders.
Although the blog I'm quoting from here makes some very interesting points, apparently the assertion that evidence exists linking Saddam, Abu Nidal, and Al Quaeda's Mohammed Atta is false.
There is solid evidence that Iraq, before Saddam seized power, helped fund ANO's start-up costs. Nidal had represented Fatah, Yasir Arafat's group, in Baghdad. Saddam continued Iraq's ties to ANO, severing them in 1983 to gain American support for his war against Iran. (Saddam invited the ANO back after the war.) Syria, Iraq and Libya supported ANO also, providing money and material support, and sometimes hiring it for dirty jobs.
ANO was a deadly outfit. It killed about 900 people in 20 countries and attacked Arabs whom it didn't consider sufficiently anti-Israeli. In December 1985, the ANO shot up El Al airline counters in Rome and Vienna, an attack I remember well because I lived in Germany at the time, where the attacks got enduring, graphic coverage. Eighteen people died and more than 100 were injured.
Nidal himself was not a very healthy man, reportedly suffering from heart disease and other chronic illnesses. Power politics by Arab countries began freezing ANO out of favor in the late 1980s. Eventually, Abu Nidal set up headquarters in Baghdad, ostensibly because of the medical care available there, but just as likely because only Saddam would have truck with him.
In August 2002, Abu Nidal died in Baghdad of lead poisoning, the 9mm kind. Saddam's government announced Nidal had committed suicide while seriously ill.
The UK Telegraph reported shortly after he died that he had been killed on orders of Saddam Hussein. The reason?
>>>
I have no doubt Saddam did have Nidal bumped off - not because he would not train al Qaeda, but because he did, in a very particular way, and Saddam wanted to eliminate the trail. Via Glenn Reynolds, the Iraq Governing Council says that Nidal in fact did train al Qaeda terrorists - specifically Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, 2001.
Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.
Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.
In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy". ...
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he [Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee] said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
There is ironclad proof that al Qaeda and Saddam were formally allied after 9/11. Osama bin Laden publicly urged Muslims to fight alongside Saddam's forces against the Americans. (I wrote a lot about al Qaeda and Iraq, start here .)
But the sticking point has always been whether al Qaeda and Saddam cooperated with one another before 9/11. The evidence, including this revelation from the IGC, is mounting that they did.
But why would Saddam have Nidal shot because he trained Atta and perhaps other terrorists? Recall that in July-August 2002, the Bush administration began turning its attention in earnest toward Iraq. Janes.com said it confirmed Nidal was killed by Saddamites, then explained,
>>>
The story of the IGC documents needs to be followed closely. If authentic, the documents provide ironclad proof that Saddam was complicit in killing 3,000-plus Americans and other nationalities on Sept. 11, 2001, even to the point of at least co-selecting the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and whatever the fourth target was supposed to be.
The Bush administration never directly claimed such a connection as a justification of the Iraq campaign. But it didn't try to dissuade Americans from believing it, either. At the time, the administration's dissembling was attacked by its opponents as deceptive. But it may now turn out that there were excellent reasons, known to the administration soon after 9/11, to believe Saddam was complicit in al Qaeda's terror activities - and that the administration later had credible, though not conclusive, evidence that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Even so, the real significance of the IGC documents - again, I stress that American agencies have not authenticated them - is not merely providing an ex-post-facto, concrete inclusion of the Iraq campaign into the anti-terror war. It is the web of al Qaeda connections that Iraqi documents will almost certainly reveal, and from what other countries al Qaeda received actual assistance in the form of money, materiel, training or other resources. I'd say at the top of the list is either Syria or Iran, with the other occupying second place.
Another thing a confirmation of the connection will do is completely cut the rug from under France's and Germany's opposition to America in Iraq. Both nations' governments are slimy in their collusion with Saddam over many years. French President Jacques Chirac was personally so much in bed with Saddam that he should be charged with political prostitution. Neither Chirac nor German Chancellor Gerhard Shroder are very secure in their offices; such news cannot improve their standing among their own constituents.
What this means is that Old Europe will be less able to oppose America's next steps in the anti-terror war than before, whatever those steps turn out to be. Iranians opposing the mullah's regime will be likely be emboldened as the mullahs find their apologists in Europe are muted. Syria's dictator Bashar Assad has long been fearful his regime is next on Bush's list; even retroactive additional justification for Iraq's invasion will shake him badly. He may attempt to walk the straight and narrow placate America. That won't be good news for Hezbollah, which relies on Syrian patronage to sustain its anti-Israel terrorism.
Finally, a verified connection between Saddam and 9/11's infamy may drive the Saudi royal family decisively toward crushing al Qaeda within its borders.
Although the blog I'm quoting from here makes some very interesting points, apparently the assertion that evidence exists linking Saddam, Abu Nidal, and Al Quaeda's Mohammed Atta is false.
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