Iraqi official at 9-11 plot meeting
U.S. finds documents tying Saddam's man to al-Qaida
Posted: May 27, 2004
1:52 p.m. Eastern
2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces provide new evidence of a
direct link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks on the United States.
Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who
was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at
which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Fedayeen was the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday, which
was deployed to do much of the regime's dirty work.
The U.S. has never been sure Shakir was at the Kuala Lumpur meeting on behalf
of Saddam's regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamist on his own, the Journal
notes.
The paper cautions, however, it is possible the Shakir listed on the rosters is
not the Iraqi of the same name with proven al-Qaida connections.
But sources tell the Journal the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters is
not in question. Coalition forces have found millions of documents that still
are being sorted, translated and absorbed, the paper said.
Reported accounts of the al-Qaida planning summit said Shakir had a job at the
Kuala Lumpur airport he obtained through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the
Iraqi embassy.
Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American
Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon – Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi
– and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks.
Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden
lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Shakir left Malaysia four days after the summit finished, Jan. 13, 2000, then
turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested Sept. 17, 2001, four days after the
attacks.
A search uncovered phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe
houses and contacts and information related to a 1995 al-Qaida plot to blow up
a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.
But Shakir, inexplicably, was released after a brief detention and flew to
Amman, Jordan, where he was arrested again. The Jordanians released him,
however, with the OK of the CIA, after pressure from the Iraqis and Amensty
International.
He was last seen returning to Baghdad.
Noting the volume of evidence, the Journal said, "One of the mysteries of
postwar Iraq is why the Bush Administration and our $40-billion-a-year
intelligence services haven't devoted more resources to probing the links
between Saddam's regime and al-Qaida."
The current official U.S. intelligence conclusion is that Saddam's regime was
not involved in supporting the Sept. 11 attacks.
A new book by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, "The Connection," puts
together the evidence of Saddam's ties to al-Qaida.
"The Baathists killing U.S. soldiers are clearly working with al-Qaida now,"
the Journal says. "Saddam's files might show us how they linked up in the first
place."
As Geostrategy-Direct reported, new evidence about a meeting in Prague between
Sept. 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil
Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been uncovered. If confirmed, the meeting would
indicate a role by Saddam's intelligence service in some level of support for
the 9-11 plot.
The information supports other journalists who have uncovered a connection
between Iraq and al-Qaida, including Jayna Davis, author of "The Third
Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing."
In her book, Davis suggests the Sept. 11 attacks possibly could have been
prevented if evidence of an Iraqi and al-Qaida link to the OKC bombing had been
pursued.
Davis writes that in November 1997, Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini – a former
Iraqi Republican Guardsman whom multiple eyewitnesses identified as McVeigh's
elusive accomplice, John Doe 2 – confided to his psychiatrist that he was
anxious about his airport job because "if something were to happen there, I
(Al-Hussaini) would be a suspect." At the time, Al-Hussaini was employed at
Boston Logan International Airport, where two of the four 9-11 suicide
hijackings originated.
She also reveals court records that suggest one of bombers Timothy McVeigh's
and Terry Nichols's accused Middle Eastern handlers had foreknowledge of the
9-11 plot.
In addition, Davis discusses information she first uncovered eight years ago
– that Nichols learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the
training of Philippines-based al-Qaida explosives expert Ramzi Yousef, the
convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In February, columnist and author Jonathan Schanzer wrote in the Weekly
Standard of his meeting in a Kurdish prison with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who
claims he worked for a man who was Saddam's envoy to al-Qaida.
In the interview, al-Shamari confirmed he was involved in assisting Ansar al
Islam, an al-Qaida affiliate responsible for attacks against Kurdish and
Western targets in northern Iraq. Weapons, "mostly mortar rounds," were
supplied to the terrorists, the prisoner told Schanzer.
Besides weapons, al-Shamari says, Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat,
helped the terror group financially "every month or two months."
In December, Geostrategy-Direct reported Iraqi officers interrogated by the
United States and coalition officials said Saddam, through Saudi contacts, had
invited al-Qaida insurgents to form suicide and other units to stop the U.S.
military in March.
Saddam's contacts with al-Qaida, the officers told interrogators, preceded the
Sept. 11 attacks. They said Saudi envoys arranged for al-Qaida insurgents to
enter Iraq and begin training in camps around Baghdad.
The al-Qaida insurgents were trained at two camps – Nahrawan and Salman Pak
– under the supervision of the Fedayeen Saddam.
Officers said the Salman Pak training included ways to hijack airplanes.
Training was conducted under the supervision of an unidentified Iraqi general
who is currently a police commander. They said many of the al-Qaida insurgents
left Iraq after their training stint.
The London Telegraph reported in December the discovery of a secret memo to
Saddam that gives details of a visit by Atta to Baghdad just weeks before the
9-11 attacks. Information obtained by Iraq's coalition goverment indicated Atta
was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal.
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with
al-Qaida," said Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man
presidential committee, according to the London paper.
"But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far,"
he said. "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida, he had
contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
In November, the Weekly Standard reported a 16-page top secret government memo
to the Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and Saddam had an
operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in
explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical
support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11
attacks.
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| User: "Lone Ranger" |
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| Title: Re: U.S. finds documents tying Saddam's man to al-Qaida |
02 Jun 2004 05:18:46 PM |
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On 28 May 2004 10:42:26 GMT, (TonyZ2001) wrote:
Iraqi official at 9-11 plot meeting
U.S. finds documents tying Saddam's man to al-Qaida
2004 WorldNetDaily.com
If you're looking for conspiracy theories, then go to the WND website.
They are repackaging old stories and distorting the facts, hoping that
some of the gullible fools will believe there is a link between Saddam
Hussein and Al Qaida.
The London Telegraph reported in December the discovery of a secret
memo to Saddam that gives details of a visit by Atta to Baghdad just weeks
before the 9-11 attacks. Information obtained by Iraq's coalition goverment
indicated Atta was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal.
http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3741646&p1=0
Contacted by Newsweek, The Sunday Telegraph's Con Coughlin
acknowledged that he could not prove the authenticity of the document.
He said that while he got the memo about Mohammed Atta and Baghdad
from a "senior" member of the Iraqi Governing Council who insisted it
was "genuine," he and his newspaper had "no way of verifying it."
Ironically, even the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi, which
has been vocal in claiming ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime,
was dismissive of the new Telegraph story. "The memo is clearly
nonsense," an INC spokesman told NEWSWEEK.
U.S. officials and a leading Iraqi document expert tell NEWSWEEK that
the document is most likely a forgery - part of a thriving new trade
in dubious Iraqi documents that has cropped up in the wake of the
collapse of Saddam's regime.
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with
al-Qaida," said Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man
presidential committee, according to the London paper.
"But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so
far," he said. "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida,
he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3741646&p1=0
The document includes another sensational second item: how Iraqi
intelligence, helped by a "small team from the Al Qaeda organization,"
arranged for a shipment from Niger to reach Iraq by way of Libya and
Syria. Although the shipment is unspecified, the reference to Niger
was immediately suggestive of Bush administration assertions earlier
this year that Iraq sought to import yellowcake uranium from that
African nation - claims that also have been widely discredited as
being based on other forged documents that apparently came from the
Niger Embassy in Rome.
In November, the Weekly Standard reported a 16-page top secret government
memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and Saddam had
an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in
explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical
support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11
attacks.
http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new
information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a
letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.
--
Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!
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