Alert by Saddam points to Iraq

Telegraph ^ | 9/23/01 | Jessica Berry in Jerusalem, Philip Sherwell and David Wastell in Washington

[Ranger]

SADDAM HUSSEIN put his troops on their highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on America in the strongest indication yet that the Iraqi dictator knew an atrocity was planned.

	Alert G: Iraqi forces are expecting a 'massive attack'

Since the attacks, The Telegraph has learnt that the Iraqi leader had been providing al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, with funding, logistical back-up and advanced weapons training. His operations reached a "frantic pace" in the past few months, according to Western intelligence officials.

Saddam has remained out of the public eye in his network of bunkers since the military alert at the end of August and moved his two wives, Sajida and Samira, away from the presidential palaces in Baghdad to Tikrit, his home town 100 miles to the north.

The CIA also claims to have proof that bin Laden aides were in contact with Iraqi intelligence in the days before the New York outrage. One intelligence official said that there had been nothing obvious to warrant Saddam's declaration of "Alert G", Iraq's highest state of readiness. "He was clearly expecting a massive attack and it leads you to wonder why," he said.

The CIA is understood to have evidence that Mohammed Atta, one of the suicide bombers, met an Iraqi intelligence officer earlier this year in Prague. Further evidence of Iraqi complicity emerged last week. In the past four months at least three high-ranking Iraqi intelligence officials - among them Hassan Ezba Thalaj, a veteran officer with a reputation for ruthlessness - have visited Pakistan to meet representatives of al-Qaeda. Previous visitors have taken large sums of money with them, including Ahmed al Jafari, a senior Baghdad intelligence officer who took £420,000 18 months ago. Other funds have been forwarded via banks in Lebanon.

The "operational brains" behind the September 11 attack have been named by an Israeli intelligence official as Imad Mugniyeh, the head of special overseas operations for Hizbollah, and Ayman al Zawahri, an Egyptian and a senior figure in al-Qaeda. The official quoted by Jane's, the military journal, said they "were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi intelligence service".

Zawahri was indicted in New York in 1999 in connection with the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks blamed on bin Laden. Mugniyeh organised anti-American attacks in Lebanon in the 1980s, including the suicide lorry bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and led a network of kidnappers who held dozens of Westerners hostage.

Although the US is understood to have found no hard evidence linking Baghdad directly to the kamikaze attacks, hardliners in the Bush administration are pushing for Iraq to be targeted in the war on terrorism.

Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, has argued, however,that taking on Saddam immediately could "wreck" the coalition by driving away Arab countries whose support will be needed.

Saddam has a long track record of hosting terrorists and running guerrilla training camps. Khidhir Hamza, the Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam's nuclear bomb-making programme until he defected to America in 1994, said it was "highly possible" that the Iraqi regime played an indirect role in last week's attack through support and training for the hijackers.

"Saddam has an intelligence network which knows its way around the world," he said. "Nobody else in the region has such a sophisticated and well-financed network."

In a further development, Iraqi exiles have learnt from contacts in Baghdad that 58 young pilots, handpicked for their loyalty to the regime, underwent a rigorous three-month suicide mission course in 1999. The training took place at two separate airbases in Iraq.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Funny that the DEBKA reports, which everyone around here poo-poos so much, was the only one to pick up on the heightened IRAQ activity in the weeks preceeding this terrorist attack. Perhaps they do have some valid information every now and then.

[Bobby777]

USAF: "knock, knock!"

Osama bin scumbag: "Who's there?"

USAF: "B-1 ..."

Osama bin scumbag: "B-1 who?"

USAF: "B-1 Lancer, dirtbag!!!"

Osama bin scumbag: "Ali McGraw!!!!!!"

(with apologies to "Hot Shots!: Part Deux")

[Common Tator]

Doesn't the Irag alert correspond with British and US attacks on Iraq air defenses.

Yes they certainly do.

It may interest you to know that Afghanistan was on our side in the war against Sadam. Look it up. Afghanistan was on our side against Sadam in 1991. They were a member to the coalition that fought Sadam for his invasion of Kuwait.

bin Laden has always had more actual money and supply support in Syria and Saudi than he did in Iraq.

This is disinformation to make the stupid look at Sadam instead of Syria.

[Bobby777]

Syria is certainly the center for state-sponsored terrorism ...

[l33t]

Taliban was not in charge of Afghanistan until mid-90's. They most would not have been on our side during the Gulf War.

[ckilmer]

the trouble with DEBKA like the trouble with Israeli intelligence. They issue 5 warnings of immenent attack. One of them is right. Which one?