Posted on 06/01/2004 1:36:51 PM PDT by quidnunc
The brutal beheading of American Nick Berg in Iraq should refocus our attention on Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism. While some continue to claim that Hussein did not back terror, many believe that he did — and the evidence supports the latter.
• Uber-terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the man whom the CIA believes murdered Berg and is the mastermind behind much of today's savage terrorism in Iraq and surrounding countries, is a case in point. He previously ran an Islamist terrorist-training camp in Afghanistan. Zarqawi was wounded during America's Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and fled to Iraq when U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban. He received medical care for a serious leg injury and convalesced for more than two months in Baathist Baghdad. At minimum, Hussein's regime provided Zarqawi with safe harbor and free passage in and out of Iraq.
Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist camp in northeastern Iraq (with chemical weapons labs) and later arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan. While some analysts believe that Zarqawi is a rival rather than an associate of Osama bin Laden, he did have links to bin Laden and allowed his camp in Iraq to be used as a refuge for al Qaeda terrorists fleeing Afghanistan.
Zarqawi is not the only terrorist with ties to Hussein. In his report in the Hudson Institute's American Outlook magazine, Deroy Murdock explains how "Baathist Iraq was a general store for terrorists, complete with cash, training, lodging and medical attention."
• Among the killers hiding in Iraq was Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. His Abu Nidal Organization killed or maimed more than 1,200 people in 20 countries, including the airborne bombing of a TWA airliner in 1974 and the attack on a TWA ticket counter at Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci airport in 1986. Nidal had taken refuge in Iraq since 1999. He reportedly "killed himself" with four bullets to the head in Baghdad in August 2002.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at miami.com ...
Ping
We should have gotten serious about icing the likes of Abu Nidal, et al., long before 9/11. We might have saved ourselves grief in the long run.
Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. citizen who moved to Iraq in the 1960's and returned to the U.S. in 1992. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Yasin fled to Iraq and was given monthly salary and housing by Saddam Hussein's regime.
Or these facts:
Ramzi Yousef (1993 WTC) and Terry Nichols (OKC) crossed paths in the Phillipines. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (9/11) was Yousef's uncle. It is interesting to note that Yousef entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi".
9/11 was not the beginning of Saddam's complicity in terror attacks on the U.S.
There's another good article from the Weekly Standard (via Frontpage) about these very connections...including those the media made pre-Bush.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=13589
It is amazing to watch the big media chastize and redicule Foxnews viewers for accepting a Saddam/terrorist connection, when they were involved with making these very connections only a few short years ago. This doesn't just reveal a bias...it's an intentional and coordinated effort to distort the truth and mislead the American public simply to advance their liberal agenda and candidates...at the expense of our nation's security.
-snip
"Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed "Saddam + Bin Laden?" "Here's what is known so far," it read:
"Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer."
Four days later, on January 15, 1999, ABC News reported that three intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had offered asylum to bin Laden:
"Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. --ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."
NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered this report: "Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan." According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait...
"By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way:
"The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers." Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials.
In the spring of 1998--well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa--the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction.
The Clinton Justice Department had been concerned about negative public reaction to its potentially capturing bin Laden without "a vehicle for extradition," official paperwork charging him with a crime. It was "not an afterthought" to include the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official familiar with the deliberations. "It couldn't have gotten into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to it under oath."
The Clinton administration's indictment read unequivocally: "Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
Add to this list:
One of the 1993 WTC bombers fled to Iraq after the bombing. Check out Iraq's newspaper story, (newspaper under control of Saddam's son), and tell me this guy didn't know 9/11 was coming. Find it on Newsmax.
Abu Nidal was an agent double, he was working for the Israeli intelligence agency for years .
Welcome to FreeRepublic ...
Do you know that to be fact, or is it just oppinion?
Links?
less than two months before 9/11/01, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper “Al-Nasiriya” carried a column headlined, “American, an Obsession called Osama Bin Ladin.” (July 21, 2001)
In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the US “with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.”
The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden “will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,” and that the US “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, “New York, New York”.
That and a host of other links here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1127451/posts
I never understand why they don't use Yassin as the poster boy for Iraq's anti American terrorist links. This guy mixed the chemicals for the first World Trade Center bombing and was hiding in Iraq afterwards. There had been some reports that Saddam offered to turn him over to us but I have no idea how serious they were. There is also the Achille Lauro murderer.
The silence in response to the question of SOURCE for your rather conspiritorial claim out of left field----is deafening.
I seriously doubt the Israelis would ever work with Abu Nidal and Abu Nidal would never have done anything to help Israel. Hence the silence in response to the question.
Hmmmmm...
One French terrorism expert stated: "If Abu Nidal himself is not an Israeli agent, then two or three of his senior people most certainly are.
Nothing else can explain some of his operations."
A former senior Jordanian intelligence officer said: "Scratch around inside Abu Nidal's organization and you will find Mossad."
Backing up these reports was a former member of Abu Nidal's own Justice Committee, who told Seale that Mossad agents captured by Abu Nidal were usually killed very quickly to prevent them from confessing their true motives. Abu Iyad, former chief of PLO Intelligence, added, "Every Palestinian who works in intelligence is convinced that Israel has a big hand in Abu Nidal's affairs."
Yes, that is Abdul Rahman Yasin, whom I mentioned in post #4.
Check out Iraq's newspaper story, (newspaper under control of Saddam's son), and tell me this guy didn't know 9/11 was coming.
In in 1998, an Arab intelligence officer, who knows Saddam personally, predicted in Newsweek: "Very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis." The Arab official said these terror operations would be run under "false flags" --spook-speak for front groups--including bin Laden's organization.
Then there were the predictions by an Iraqi with ties to Iraqi intelligence, Naeem Abd Mulhalhal, in Qusay's own newspaper several weeks before the attacks that stated bin Laden would “demolish the Pentagon after he destroys the White House and ”bin Laden would strike America “on the arm that is already hurting.” (referencing a second IRAQI sponsored attack on the World Trade Center). Another reference to New York was “[bin Laden] will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra everytime he hears his songs.” (e.g., “New York, New York”) which identified New York, New York as a target. Mulhalhal also stated, “The wings of a dove and the bullet are all but one and the same in the heart of a believer." which references an airplane attack.
The Arabic language daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabic also cited the cooperation between Iraq, bin Laden and Al December 1998 editorial, which predicted that “President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four day air strike, will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama Bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world.” This info is in the link provided in the para above. How could these people have had foreknowledge without Iraq being involved?
Warning...slow loading .pdf file. This was a lawsuit filed against Iraq after 9/11...the court ruled against Iraq.
I ask for a SOURCE and you site some Indy website out of Canada? I guess its one strand of credability at not being anti-Israel is that at least its not French. And their entire basis for these claims comes from quotes of Jordanians and the PLO?
This "SOURCE" doesn't go far enough, I wonder what Hammas had to say about this conspiracy, as well as quotes from Hezbola and Islamic Jihad, and while they are at it-who they thought caused the recent drought and power outtages in Moooslim lands. They could settle it for us whether or not it was the Mossad was behind this devilry.
Your handle, ravingnutter, is more appropriate that you grasp.
Finally, the source cited most often, according to my search, is British journalist Patrick Seale, a supposedly acknowledged authority on the Middle East, who devoted an entire book, entitled "Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire", outlining and documenting his thesis that Nidal was largely a surrogate for the Mossad all along.
Whether or not that is true, I have no idea. But your contention that this claim is only made by Jordanians or the PLO is wrong, according the articles I just read on this, which claim that Nidal's actions seemed to benefit Israel more than they hurt them. Here are a couple more articles from my search that I opened and skimmed for info:
Like I said...whether this is true or not I have no idea, but the info is out there.
Of course you do realize that this article is totally useless when posted as a brief excerpt?
Nobody outside of Florida is going to go through that paper's involved registration process for a single article, and it is not the registration where someone could use a universal name and password.
Yes these other articles seem to have a more feasible outlook, that because this Abu Nidal character kills muslims too, he must work with Israel? (Because we all know the Mossad is bloodthirsty, so a dead Palestinian is a good one in their book)
Now my problem with what I could stand of these sources, and I admit to not reading all of them is at their foundation-they are heresay and CONSPIRITORIAL.
Conspiracy thinking, that an omnipowerful Mossad, or CIA or NSA is behind every negative thing is an mental infection across the Arab world. All of these articles cite as facts is quotes from Arab's of their postulations about Nidal and Israel's "motives."
Its really sad when you think about it, and I think the lack of personal responsibilty, or an understanding that bad things do happen, and that doesn't mean a conspiracy was behind it, is a Pandemic with Muslims.
Does that mean Abu Nidal is not a psychopath? Heck no. He sounds like a murder bastard, although there are so many like in the Palestinian culture I have to wonder how this guy made a name for himself. Does that mean that he works for the Mossad? No. I don't see the evidence, I see theories that desperately seek to blame Da Jooz, as the Arabs so often do, for bad things happening to them, and that logical leap is the main reason why every Muslim nation in the world is technically a Failed State.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.