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In May 1988, a prison guard checked Taymour Abdullah Ahmad's name off a list and directed him to a bus idling in the Popular Army camp in Topzawa, southwest of Kirkuk. The camp was one of Iraq's grimmest prisons. During his month-long internment there, the 12-year-old Kurdish boy watched guards beating male prisoners senseless with lengths of coaxial cable. He had seen four children weaken and then die of starvation. He stood helplessly as a guard stripped his father to his undershorts and led him off to his death. So Taymour was not sorry to see the last of Topzawa....

In 1979, Saddam Hussein publicly accused 68 of his own party members of treason.

The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said. As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

Saddam Hussein's government provided senior Russian officials with oil rights worth millions of dollars under the oil-for-food program in an effort to lift U.N. sanctions against Iraq, according to a U.S. Senate Committee report released on Monday. The oil allocations were "compensation for support," Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report, based on documents as well as interviews with Ramadan and Tareq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, pointed to Alexander Voloshin, former chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin in the Russian Presidential Council, and ultranationalist parliamentarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Both men had...

N.Y. imam sentenced in terror sting Staff and agencies 08 March, 2007 http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=72974 By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago ALBANY, N.Y. - The former imam of an Albany mosque was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in a money laundering scheme involving a fictional terror plot set up as an FBI sting. "I never had any intention to harm anyone in this country," the 36-year-old Kurdish refugee said. "And I don‘t know why I‘m guilty." The informant asked Hossain to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used...

Over and over again, the cluelessness of the Biden administration has people's heads shaking, hitting desks, or simply thrown back in disgusted astonishment. TELL ME HE DIDN'T SAY THAT Their complete inability to grasp any given situation was on display again yesterday as our diffident and generally incompetent Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, wandered out to a podium to mumble a few words on the state of the insurgency that had just conquered Syria. I don't know what I was expecting from this misbegotten spore off the old White House mushroom, but it most assuredly wasn't what came out of...

The Syrian people are exuberant about the end of the Bashar al-Assad regime. But there is one atrocity by this notorious family that has been described as “one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world.” That is the 1982 encirclement, starvation and mass execution of the residents of the Syrian city of Hama. This atrocity was committed by Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad. Last Friday, residents of Hama tore down the statue of Hafez al-Assad while the city fell to rebels. While much of the world just saw it as another Syrian city falling, its significance...

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad tells his Russian ally Putin the assault on Ukraine is justified and aimed at ‘restoring’ post-Cold-War balance.

Since I've been following the trail of the Chahine Hezbollah organized crime family for years, I've learned a lot more about Hezbollah spy and FBI/CIA Agent Nada Nadim Prouty. Don't forget that she and her sister Elfat El-Aouar Chahine are not the only members of their family to defraud the federal government in immigration, tax, and Hezbollah related matters. Another sister, an OB-GYN, Rula Nadim Al Aouar (different spelling to confuse/evade U.S. authorities--a common Muslim and Arab practice), also engaged in a sham marriage and immigration fraud.

Saddam's Shadow Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 Copyright 1997 Indigo Publications Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 SECTION: MINING; DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO; N. 207 LENGTH: 787 words HEADLINE: Saddam's Shadow BODY: It's not only diamonds and base metals that interest big mining companies and the latter are not alone in being interested in Katanga. In the delegation that the United States sent to Kinshasa on June 2 under its ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, the state department's African affairs department was represented by Marc Baas, director for Central Africa. (Susan Rice, director for African...

Moments ago the U.S. Treasury Department announced official sanctions against Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (El Aissami). El Aissami is the Executive Vice President of Venezuela. WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Venezuelan national Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (El Aissami) as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking. El Aissami is the Executive Vice President of Venezuela.

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

BAGHDAD, July 15 (VOI) - Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, Iraq's former military commander and Saddam Hussein's vice president, criticized al-Qaeda network in Iraq and Mahdi Army militias loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in his first audio call, vowing to fight U.S. troops in Iraq. Al Douri, who has not been seen since the last days of Saddam's rule, became the leader of the Baath Party after Saddam's execution in December 2006. It was unclear why al Douri chose this time to release an audio tape — his first ever at a time that Iraq is witnessing an all time...

The former vice-president of Baath Party, Izzat Ibrahim has been appointed as the new party leader after the execution of Saddam Hussain, according to a statement issued from the party today. Saddam Hussein`s fugitive deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri vowed that the ousted president`s execution would only strengthen the anti-US insurgency in an internet statement posted Tuesday. "I call on the valiant commanders of the jihad and the brave fighters in all jihadi groups to strive seriously to create a jihad and resistance front .. in order to destroy the enemy and liberate our beloved homeland," said the statement posted on...

DAMASCUS, Syria — A former top deputy to Saddam Hussein has urged followers in a letter to turn down proposals for reconciliation talks with the United States or the Iraqi government, according to former Baath party members outside Iraq familiar with the letter. It is unclear if the message from Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam's former vice president and now a fugitive with a $10 million bounty on his head, is being followed. But it appears aimed at blunting a flurry of diplomacy to stabilize Iraq, including efforts by several Arab governments to persuade Iraqi Sunni insurgents to lay down arms and...

The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami and accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking. (snip) The U.S. is also sanctioning Samark Bello, a wealthy businessman connected to El Aissami who has held significant business interests in the U.S. The U.S. says Bello provided assistance or support to El Aissami’s trafficking activities.

Saddam Hussein had a secret torture room built in the basement of the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York’s Upper East Side, it has been reported. The Iraqi dictator ordered the installation of the “detention room” inside the five-story building at 14 East 79th Street when he rose to power in 1979, two unnamed Iraqi officials told the New York Post. “It was a dark room. The doors were reinforced in a way that nobody could break in or out. You didn’t need to soundproof it,” one official said. The other official added: “You’re not going to...

Ruling party learned from Nazis THE chances of a lightning-quick war in Iraq evaporated with the unexpected determination and guerrilla tactics of the Baath Party militia. Trapped between a civilian population which viscerally hates them, and the advancing allies, it was predictable the petty bureaucrats and young thugs behind Saddam's totalitarian rule would fight it out. But who are the members of the Baath Party? In Arabic, baath means renaissance or resurrection. The Baath Arab Socialist Party, to give the organisation its formal title, is the original secular Arab nationalist movement, founded in Damascus in the 1940s to combat Western...

The following are excerpts from the televised confessions of Muayed Al-Nasseri, who commanded Saddam Hussein's "Army of Muhammad" throughout 2004. The confessions were aired by an Iraqi TV channel that operates from the UAE, Al-Fayhaa TV, and were monitored and translated by the MEMRI TV Project. The following are excerpts; to view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=492: [1] 'The Army of Muhammad was Founded by Saddam Hussein After the Fall of the Regime' Interrogator: "What is your name?" Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Colonel Muayed Yassin 'Aziz 'Abd Al-Razaq Al-Nasseri, commander of the Army of Muhammad, one of the resistance factions in Iraq. The...