Terrorist Behind September 11 Strike was Trained by Saddam

The Telegraph ^ | December 14, 2003 | Con Coughlin

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I have a feeling that Sadam has enought kick left in him that he would like to string the WMD and 9-11 issues along to see if it could interfere with the re-election of one George W Bush. What does the man have left to lose?

[LoudRepublicangirl]

They may use the hijra calendar-it is the lunar cycle based on Mohammads pilgrimage to Mecca.

[Ben Hecks]

"And speculation has been, that, in fact, somehow, the Iraqi government or Saddam Hussein had him eliminated to avoid potential embarrassment by virtue of the fact that he was in Baghdad and operated in Baghdad."

Thanks, Piasa. I tend to believe that this account is correct. Regardless of how Abu Nidal met his death, Saddam knew he was living in Baghdad and was, at the very least, guilty of harboring a wanted terrorist.

[knak]

they're having a fit a DU about this. They say "how convenient" it came out after they catch him. I guess they can't read.

[IGOTMINE]

Dead men telling no tales was the first thing I thought when I read this too.

GMTA.

[IGOTMINE]

Senator Allen of Virginia was just asked about this story on Fox News.

[quidnunc]

camas wrote: do they use the same calendar in their offical work as we do?? july 1 2001??

The memo was undoubtedly in Arabic so everything is a translation.

Even if they call it something different it would have to be translated into English and the Julian calender to be understandable to us.

[recalcitrant]

yes.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yep!

Lessons in making bombs, minute-by-minute propaganda to brainwash you, lessons in finance, in weapons, fitness courses, rifle training, grenades, detonation methods, infiltration, ....

They are all taught as "subjects" in camps many originally set in the former USSR-sponsered terror states: Iran, Iraq, Jordan, PLO, Libya, Sudan, Afghan., N Korean, ..... AQ had camps in north Iraq near the Iran border already discovered, had airplanes set up as "how-to-hijack" training aides, camps for food, clothing, shelter, rest and re-training.....

[piasa]

DECEMBER 21, 1998 : (HIJAZI & BIN LADEN TARGET LIST MADE) "Terrorist cells belonging to the network organized by Osama bin Laden...are ready go into action in the countries of the Persian Gulf and Europe...The list of targets is ready. It was agreed in Kandahar 21 December by Osama himself and Farouk Hijazi... The new recruits, together with the veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia, form the secret army that is expected to use its weapons against all those who oppose the rais of Baghdad. In order to make them even more dangerous, traditional training has been supplemented with training in the use of chemical weapons, toxins and viruses."  [Corriere della Sera, February 1, 1999 (Italia)] see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/743697/posts?page=51#51

2000 summer : (FORMER IRAQI GENERAL AL-QURAIRI SAW ARAB STUDENTS BEING TAUGHT TO HIJACK AIRCRAFT AT SALMAN PAK IN AN OLD TUPOLEV PASSENGER JET) On a satellite photo, he (al-Qurairi) picks out Sal- man Pak's main features. In the southern part of the camp, at a bend in the Tigris River, is the barracks used for non-lraqi Arabs, Islamic fundamentalists who first came to Salman Pak in 1995 to be trained in classes of 24 by al-Qurairy's closest friend, Brigadier General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi. He is a man who practices what he preaches: he is wanted by Lebanese authorities for the 1994 murder of an opposition leader in Beirut. As recently as the summer of 2000, al-Qurairy saw the Arab students being taught to hijack aircraft on Salman Pak's own passenger jet, an Old Russian Tupolev. They all took a special course, al Qurairi said in late 2001 -"how to gain control of the cockpit and passengers without using fire- arms." Professional pride meant the Iraqis ensured the Islamists reached a high standard: "When we train non-lraqis, we're not training them to preach in a mosque. We don't expect them to preach in a mosque, but to carry out offensive duties." But Brigadier General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi and his fellow instructors, all members of Saddam's secular Baath Party, regarded their Islamist students with contempt. "When Jassim and I go for a drink after work, Jassim says they are sons of bitches. They have all this work to do, but they spend half their time praying." AI-Qurairy was responsible for running the north part of Salman Pak, and for al-Qare'a. He served as the unit's staff general and supervised its formation, at Uday's behest, from the best and most politically reliable fighters from an earlier and larger special-forces group-the Fedayeen Saddam, 'Saddam's Martyrs." (He remained in charge of. the Fedayeen as well.) From the time of its conception in 1995, al- Qurairy says, al-Qare'a was seen as a super-elite, as a force inured to violent death. Faced with the aftermath\ of defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam believed that "to defend the country, sometimes you have to go on the attack." That could mean several things, including assassination, hijacking, and suicide missions. "Trainees who fail are used as targets in live ammunition exercises," al-Qurairy explains. "So they die. ... The training is purely offensive and not only offensive but suicidal. They are made to sign a document when they join that specifically says that orders will ask individual members to commit suicide on missions." The suicide-attacker principle was not original. Al-Qurairy says, "They got that idea from the Islamists." In one training procedure, regularly repeated, students had to land three helicopters on the roof of a speeding train on Salman Pak's own railroad, and then hijack it. With sudden animation, al-Qurairy gets up from his chair and performs a series of jumps and pirouettes, demonstrating the difficulty of the necessary maneuvers. "Fifty took part; 38 passed," he says. "Twelve failed. They were used as 'passengers' in sub- sequent exercises." Part of the role envisaged for al-Qare'a is to crush future internal rebellion. But the unit's primary ethos remains aggression against enemies abroad. "That's the very nature of our training," al-Qurairy says. "We have to go outside lraq-why would we train to blow up a building in Baghdad?" - "INSIDE SADDAM'S TERROR REGIME," 00000101.htm http://www.iraq.net/erica/news-e/archives/00000101.htm , (2002/01/21)

[PJ-Comix]

The second item contains a report of how Iraqi intelligence, helped by "a small team from the al-Qaeda organisation", arranged for an (unspecified) shipment from Niger to reach Baghdad by way of Libya and Syria.

Any comment yet from Ambassador "Frogwalk" Wilson?

[piasa]

Former Ambassador Frogmarch will assure us that elBaradei thinks the docs are forged, and the money received by Atta, Ritter and the Brit official was just Monopoly money.

CIA Bombshell: Saddam Financed Lead 9/11 Hijacker
NewsMax ^ | 11/15/03 | Limbacher

In a startling about face for U.S. intelligence officials, a bombshell memo released by the CIA on Saturday draws a direct link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, citing evidence that Iraqi intelligence bankrolled lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in the months leading up to the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil.

The previously secret 16 page memo, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Saturday morning, says Atta met at least three times in Prague with Iraqi intelligence agent Ahmed al Ani prior to the 9/11 attacks.

In a staggering revelation that offers an overwhelming and compelling justification for the U.S. attack on Iraq, the CIA memo says that, during one of these meetings, al Ani "ordered the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office."

More . . .

[Free Vulcan]

bump

[petercooper]

bttt

[southernnorthcarolina]

DO NOT ALLOW THIS STORY TO GET BURIED!

[GailA]

btt

[fourhorsemen]

shouldn't this be enough to put Saddam on trial here in the U.S. for his involvement in 9/11? Will Bush do this?

[Shermy]

Off line for a while...I gotta lot to catch up on...

I'd be cautious...could be some Iraqi forgers looking to make some bucks off reporters...

[ChefKeith]

BTTT