Bin Ladin and Iraq
Iraq News, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 1999
By Laurie MylroieThe central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .
I. OSAMA BIN LADIN URGES REVENGE FOR IRAQ STRIKES, AP, DEC 26
II. CORRIERE DELLA SERA, BIN LADIN AND IRAQ, DEC 28
III. AL WATAN AL ARABI, BIN LADIN AND IRAQ, JAN 1
IV. AL MAJALLAH, BIN LADIN AND IRAQ, JAN 10
V. DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE KIDNAPPINGS IN YEMEN AND IRAQ, JAN 3
VI. AL ITTIHAD, KUWAIT ARRESTS IRAQ-TRAINED FUNDAMENTALISTS, JAN 12
VII. AL MAJALLAH, BIN LADIN AND IRAQ, JAN 22
At 9 PM EST tonight CBS' new program "60 Minutes II" will feature a
report on Iraq's continuing nuclear threat and on inspections by the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq. The Nuclear Control
Institute participated in the preparation of the report and urges all to
tune in.
The Iraqi Nat'l Assembly will conclude its two-day extraordinary
session tomorrow. The next "Iraq News" will provide an update on the
ongoing, vituperative exchanges between Iraq and other Arabs.
Meanwhile, it seemed useful to review an issue that arose following
last month's US/UK air strikes-Iraq, Osama bin Ladin, and Muslim
Fundamentalists. That question received far more attention in the
Arabic press, than it did in the US press, where Newsweek, Jan 11 [see
"Iraq News," Jan 6] seemed alone in addressing the issue.
On Dec 26, as AP reported, Al Sharq Al Awsat published an interview
with bin Ladin in which he said, "'The British and the American people
loudly declared their support for their leaders' decision to attack
Iraq. ' . . . This made it 'the duty of Muslims to confront, fight and
kill' Britons and Americans."
A series of articles followed in the international, particularly
Arabic, press about links between Iraq and bin Ladin. Some party/ies
wanted to put the story out, it seems. Some information in the articles
is known and reliable, like the role of Hassan Turabi, head of Sudan's
Islamic movement, in putting Osama bin Ladin in contact with Iraqi
intelligence, during bin Ladin's residence in Khartoum. But other
information would not likely be known to outsiders and seems invented.
That said, on Dec 28, the Italian paper, Corriere della Sera, reported
"Saddam Husayn and Osama Bin Ladin have sealed a pact. Faruq Hijazi,
the former director of the Iraqi secret services and now the country's
ambassador to Turkey, held a secret meeting with the extremist leader on
21 December. . . . Hijazi reiterated Iraq's amenability to offering
shelter to Osama and to his mujahedin, 'You will always be a welcome
guest. . . We cannot forget our debt of gratitude. This was a reference
to the establishment last February of the 'International Islamic Front
against the Crusaders and the Jews,' announced by Osama in the midst of
one of the periodic crises between Iraq and the United Nations. . . The
same ritual was reenacted during the most recent crisis. The day after
the air strikes, Osama called an international news conference and
issued a new statement, including threats that neither Washington nor
London are taking lightly. . . . "
On Jan 1, the Paris-based, Al Watan Al Arabi, reported that in late
Oct, 98, an Iraqi and Sudanese visited bin Ladin in Afghanistan.
"Informed intelligence sources . . . were convinced that it was part of
a new plan for cooperation and coordination, or more accurately a
renewed one, between Iraq, bin Ladin and Sudan. Information available
to these sources confirmed that bin-Ladin began to establish close ties
with Iraq at least five years ago, specifically when the leader of
Muslim extremists chose to reside in Sudan with the blessing and
protection of Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic
Movement. These sources asserted that they received in the past few
years confirmed and detailed information that cooperation between bin
Ladin and Iraq entered 'an important and grave stage' through their
cooperation in the field of producing chemical and biological weapons.
"Al Watan al-Arabi's information indicated that several western
diplomatic and security sources, including European ones, which have
good relations with Sudan, warned in secret reports they sent at the end
of last year that Iraq, Sudan, and bin Ladin were cooperating and
coordinating in the field of chemical weapons. These reports said that
several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by
bin Ladin and supervised by Iraqi experts and technicians following a
deal between Baghdad, Khartoum, and bin-Ladin. . . .
"Informed sources asserted that the meeting was extremely serious.
The two sides laid down the details of the biggest act of cooperation
and coordination between the extremist Islamic organizations and Baghdad
for confronting the United States, the common enemy. This information
indicated that the meeting focused on the ways with which Iraq could
help the germ and chemical weapons laboratories.
A second meeting was held later in which "Bin Ladin stressed to the
Iraqi envoys that he could reach areas, which the Iraqi intelligence
could not reach. He referred to the spread of his cells in the Arab
countries and the world and focused on his ability to penetrate Arab and
Islamic countries through fundamentalist groups."
On Jan 10, the Saudi-financed, London-based, weekly, Al-Majallah,
reported that in Oct 98, an Iraqi intelligence official met with the
Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Ladin, and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri,
leader of Egypt's Jihad movement. In Dec, according to Al-Majllah, the
Iraqi embassy in Islamabad held a series of meetings with "leaders of a
number of Pakistani fundamentalist movements and elements from the
Taleban, with the knowledge of Pakistani military intelligence . . . On
21 December a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat normally based in Turkey
visited Taleban leader Mullah Omar's residence in Kandahar, then headed
for Khowat where he met with bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri. . . . [He]
affirmed to his Afghan and Arab audience Iraq's willingness to provide
financial, logistic, political and informational support for the Taleban
and the Afghan Arabs."
On Jan 3, the Daily Telegraph, reported on the UK/US investigation
into the Dec 29 kidnapping of 16 UK, US, and Australian tourists and
fatal shooting of four, by fundamentalists in Yemen. The Telegraph said
that authorities suspected that the Anglo-Saxons "were kidnapped as
'direct retribution' for last month's air strikes on Iraq, and not to
achieve the release of local Islamic militants as Yemeni authorities
claimed originally. The detectives suspect that the tourists may have
been kidnapped to 'shield' Saddam Hussein from further bombing raids,
with a warning that they would die if Iraq was attacked again."
On Jan 12, Al-Ittihad (Abu Dhabi) reported, "Kuwaiti security
authorities have received an important report indicating that there are
hundreds of 'Arab Afghans' receiving advanced military training at
al-Nasiriyah District in the south of Iraq. . . . The 'Arab Afghans' are
being trained within the context of 'an alliance' struck recently
between the Iraqi Government and an international network of militants.
Kuwaiti security authorities are said to have been able to dent that
alliance when they smashed a 'subversive cell' made up of 25 Egyptians,
which operated on Kuwaiti territory. . . It emerged from investigations
that there is an agreement in place between Iraq's intelligence services
and a front comprising six militant organizations whose ranks included
former fighters in the Afghan war effort. . . .
"'Al-Ra'y al-Amm,' a Kuwaiti daily newspaper, said yesterday that the
country's security police had rounded up 25 people . . . The daily said
that the 25 were working on behalf of Iraq and that along with them were
seized leaflets urging that the Arabs rise against the Americans. The
fliers also featured words of incitement against the regime in Kuwait.
The arrested suspects confessed to being members of a cell that had been
organized by the Iraqi regime to engage in activity designed to hurt the
stability and security of the state of Kuwait. . .
"'Al-Ittihad' has come by a copy of the leaflets that were caught with
the 25 Egyptians. One of them led with this sentence: 'A statement from
the Liberation Party-the Province of Kuwait.' The leaflet urged the
population of Kuwait to drop their arms and refrain from fighting
against the Iraqis considering that 'your taking up arms against your
fellow Muslims who come from other nations in point of fact has nothing
to do with jihad because it is a sin for a Muslim to do battle against
other Muslims. . . ."
Finally, Al Watan Al Arabi, Jan 22, suggested that Saddam's Jan 6 Army
Day speech, calling on Arabs to overthrow their governments, "was made
in the context of a grand and well-thought-out plan designed so as to
turn the clock back to a climate not unlike the run-up to operation
'Desert Storm.' . . . The Iraqi president is said to have huddled with
his sons Uday and Qusay in late November, with the private session
ending in the three making up their mind to fight their last battle that
would see the Iraqi leader join a common cause and join forces with all
extremist groups, Islamic and otherwise, who are known for their
hostility to the United States. The scenario drawn up by President
Saddam Husayn and his sons calls for that alliance to launch a global
terrorist war against the great Satan, the United States, and its
allies. The campaign would pursue, in the words of the Iraqi president,
an uncompromising and scorched earth policy. . . .
"It is said that the contribution made by Iraqi Army soldiers and
security personnel in the war in southern Sudan and in south Yemen has
had the effect of fostering Baghdad's relations with the extremists who
happened to be there in Sudan and Yemen, both of which are 'allies' of
Iraq. In fact, Hasan al-Turabi and Ali Abdallah Salih, the president of
Yemen, have continued to play a role on behalf of Iraq, winning over
Islamic groups for the Baghdad government. Yemen had been regarded as a
rearguard base for those extremists who came from various nationalities.
Yemen had been using them as much to advance its own national interests
as to help Iraq, which viewed the presence of those militants on Yemen's
soil as leverage with which it could bring pressure to bear on Gulf
states. The abduction of 16 Western hostages a few weeks ago by the
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army was to retaliate for the US-UK air strikes
against Iraq. . . .
"The intelligence sources saw in the arrest of 25 Islamists in Kuwait
for their involvement in the distribution of leaflets hostile to the
Americans a fresh warning that this new front had actually begun to
activate its cells in concert with Islamic groups based in a number of
countries. . . .
Finally, al Watan al Arabi described events of the first half of
1993. "In the month of June of that year, the Iraqi President Saddam
Husayn surprised the world when he made the threat in response to the
military strike carried out against Iraq then [the US cruise missile
attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters] that he would unleash
'terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies. . . . The
threats made by Iraq to lead terror attacks against US and Zionist and
other interests coincided with the investigation into the bombing of the
World Trade Center in New York in the month of February 1993. Several
months later, the investigation led to the discovery of a threat linking
Islamic extremists with the Iraqi regime. That was confirmed when it
emerged that the key suspect, Ramzi Yusuf, had sought refuge in Iraq
after the New York blast and remained in Iraq for a number of months."
Indeed, some Arab governments suspect/are aware that Iraq was behind
the Trade Center bombing. One of those involved in the bombing, Mahmud
Abu Halima, an Egyptian fundamentalist, fled to his family home in the
Nile delta, where he was quickly found and arrested by Egyptian
authorities. Under harsh interrotgation, Abu Halima told them that two
Iraqis had participated in the bombing, one of whom had been the
mastermind, (Abu Halima knew Ramzi Yousef as an Iraqi.) It was only two
years after the Gulf war and the Egyptians understood that Iraq was
behind the bomb. As one official Egyptian source told Newsweek's Chris
Dickey, they didn't understand why the US did nothing about it.
But the Clinton administration did, or thought it did, although its
response to the suspected Iraqi role in the Trade Center bombing was
related to events elsewhere, including in NYC. The Trade Center bombing
was followed by an FBI undercover operation, carried out in the spring
of 93, aimed at the local fundamentalists. A Sudanese emigre picked up
the bait to make jihad. His original target was a Manhattan armory.
But he had two "friends" at Sudan's UN mission--intelligence officers.
They suggested he target the UN instead and offered to provide
diplomatic plates to get a bomb laden van into the UN parking garage.
They also suggested adding another target, New York's federal building.
Two tunnels were added as well.
When the FBI had the evidence it needed--the conspirators on
videotape, mixing what they thought was a bomb--the FBI arrested them,
on Jun 24. Two days later, Clinton attacked Iraqi intelligence
headquarters. Publicly, he said the attack was retaliation for Saddam's
attempt to kill George Bush. But Clinton also meant it for the two New
York bombing conspiracies.
NY FBI, like the Egyptians, suspected Iraq was behind the Trade Center
bomb. And US authorities knew of Sudan's involvement in the second
plot, as the FBI was running it. The White House recognized that Sudan
alone didn't make sense. US-Sudanese relations were not that hostile.
The White House thought in terms of fundamentalism and thought Sudan was
fronting for Iran.
But Iran had no reason to attack the UN. After all, the 1988 UNSC
cease-fire that ended the Iraq-Iran war determined that Iraq was the
aggressor in that war and declared that Iraq owed Iran large
reparations.
But who hates the UN more than anyone else? And also has good
relations with Sudan? Of course, Iraq. But the White House did not
understand that.
When Clinton struck Iraqi intelligence headquarters, Jun 26, he
believed that the attack would stop Saddam from carrying out any more
terrorist attacks, while it would serve as warning to Sudan and Iran.
Thus, Tom Friedman reported, in an article dated Jun 27, that appeared
in the NYT, Jun 28, "White House officials said today that their only
regret about the missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters
was that there was no CNN crew there to broadcast the event live so it
could be watched in the Sudan, Iran and other countries suspected of
involvement in terorism. Administration officials say they have no
conclusive evidence that the Sudanese or Iranian intelligence services
were involved with the Muslims recently arrested in the New York area
and accused of plotting to bomb the United Nations and other sites. But
they said that when the White House was planning the strike in Baghdad,
it had not only the Iraqi audience in mind, but also the intelligence
services of countries suspected of sponsoring terrorism, like the
bombing of the World Trade Center in New York."
Thus, as the prominent Iraqi journalist, Salah Mukhtar, wrote in Al
Jumhuriyah, Jul 3, "It is . . . a wrong conclusion on Clinton's part
that striking the intelligence headquarters will ease the Iraqis' anger.
[ED: ie stop Iraq's terrorism, which is driven by anger]. This also
confirms Clinton's weakness and naivete."
Or as "Iraq News" told then NSC adviser on the Middle East, Martin
Indyk, in Dec 94, "One strike on an empty building at night is not going
to stop Saddam forever."
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