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Subject: Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?
FJV    3/23/2006 3:31:54 PM
This links to a document: http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_press/task,view/id,1526/ That contains this text:
On your second question, people forget that before we went into Iraq in early 2003, Zarqawi was in Iraq. He had a network in Baghdad. He also had ties to a group in the northeastern part of the country. That was behind a poison plot that was uncovered and frustrated in a number of European countries. This was before we ever went in. So the notion that Zarqawi is of concern about terror plots outside the country has a base in the experience before we ever went into Iraq. Second, there is a fair amount of information that he has been given that charge by al Qaeda, to have a role outside of Iraq in terms of terrorist planning. We worry about that. We track it. And obviously, we will do everything we can to disrupt it. But the easiest way to disrupt it, of course, is to deny Zarqawi a safe haven in Iraq, a place from which he can plan, and obviously, disrupt his networks and bring him to justice. This seems to point at Zarqawi and Al Queda being active in Iraq before the US went in.
 
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Herodotus    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/23/2006 4:11:50 PM
This document is a speech given by Stephen Hadley at CSIS in Dec. 2005. He responded to a question about Iraqis attacking the US before the war...with Zarqwai--Who is A.) not Iraqi, and B.) Did not attack the US before the war. That he was there before the war is obvious, that he was there with the knowledge of the Iraqi regime is not obvious. Understand the difference?
 
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Bob    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/23/2006 5:18:20 PM
Hey FJV, you have to remember that when it comes to this subject, Herodotus is a magic eight ball stuck on "Not Likely", so it's best not to shake him. Zarqawi has maintained long standing ties to Iraqi Intelligence, the Pakistani ISI, and the Taliban throughout his terrorist career - ties that could be considered stronger than his ties to Osama's Al Qaeda organization - as he worked with the Sunni extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba, Ramzi Yousef & Khalid Sheik Muhammed, and a few other Baluch / Pakistani terrorists and groups (Lashkar-e-Taiba) to bomb and murder Shi'ites in Pakistan and Iran. A rift actually developed between Osama and Zarqawi because of Zarqawi's relationship with Saddam and Iraq. In other words Zarqawi and Saddam got along well, moreso than Saddam and Osama and even moreso than Zarqawi and Osama themselves. Differences were buried yet that rift may still remain, as evidenced by those leaked Zarqawi letters. The media jumped on this when those letters were released in 2003 or 2004, with everybody with a political agenda suddenly an expert on Zarqawi in misinformed and misguided attempts to discredit Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorists, a main pillar for the invasion of Iraq. Herodotus's responses to this will probably be equally as misinformed as they'll be based on that very flurry of media reports. Doesn't mean a thing now, as Zarqawi is running Iraq's insurgency for them - still getting his licks in and killing as many shi'ites as he can in the target rich environment that is Iraq - something the Iranians and even Osama are pissed at him for. But if you ask me, they're all bad guys and pretty soon they'll all be dead bad guys.
 
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Herodotus    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/23/2006 6:22:22 PM
"Hey FJV, you have to remember that when it comes to this subject, Herodotus is a magic eight ball stuck on "Not Likely", so it's best not to shake him." I thought it was Forcast not clear... "Zarqawi has maintained long standing ties to Iraqi Intelligence, the Pakistani ISI, and the Taliban throughout his terrorist career - ties that could be considered stronger than his ties to Osama's Al Qaeda organization - as he worked with the Sunni extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba, Ramzi Yousef & Khalid Sheik Muhammed, and a few other Baluch / Pakistani terrorists and groups (Lashkar-e-Taiba) to bomb and murder Shi'ites in Pakistan and Iran." He spent 3 years or so in Afghanistan after the Soviets left where he met Yousef and KSM and bin Laden...how he developed ties to ISS during this time I don't know. He started his own group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad during this time. >> rift actually developed between Osama and Zarqawi because of Zarqawi's relationship with Saddam and Iraq. In other words Zarqawi and Saddam got along well, moreso than Saddam and Osama and even moreso than Zarqawi and Osama themselves. Differences were buried yet that rift may still remain, as evidenced by those leaked Zarqawi letters. The media jumped on this when those letters were released in 2003 or 2004, with everybody with a political agenda suddenly an expert on Zarqawi in misinformed and misguided attempts to discredit Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorists, a main pillar for the invasion of Iraq.<< Was this all before or after he spent 7 years in a Jordanian jail? He was released in 1999, he then went back to Afghanistan and met up with his old jihadi buddies in Herat. He travelled back to Jordan in 2001, was arrested briefly again, and left for Afghanistan after 9/11. He may or may not have been wounded in Afghanistan but left Afghanistan for Iran in 2002. He supposedly left Iran for Iraq in May 2002, may or may not have had his leg amputated in Baghdad (six months after he was wounded) and as of August 2002, the ISS was on the look-out for him. He went to Syria for a while and coordinated the assassination of Foley. >>Herodotus's responses to this will probably be equally as misinformed as they'll be based on that very flurry of media reports.<< Here it comes...Zarqawi and his group Tawhid allied themselves with Anasr al-Islam in late 2002 or early 2003, and was preparing for the US led invasion of Iraq. With the Iraqis distracted by the Americans, Zarqawi took advantage of the security vaccum, brought over as many loyalists as he could (including his family), and started to bombing and murdering. How was he funded? Most likely through his buddies in Afghanistan and sympathizers in Jordan. His group took the name Tanzim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn when he joined with bin Laden in October of 2004. His group then merged with the Shura Council in Jan of this year to form a more united front. However all this still means that there was not a clear link between Iraq (Saddam Huyasn) and al Qaeda despite Bob's assertions that Zarqwai had "long-standing ties" to ISS.
 
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FJV    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/24/2006 1:07:17 PM
I never got what's so hard about believing Saddam ties to Al Queda. From what I've read, terrorists always networked among each other and among governments. All the books I've read about terrorism 80's stressed that terrorists maintain ties amongst themselves between the different organisations and with governments. It was regarded as a given. IMHO it is a no brainer to expect the average Middle Eastern dictator/madman or what have you to cultivate ties with terror organisations. I can see how promosing new organisations (like Al Queda once was) can be an interestion tool for such dictatorships. To be honest, I wouldn't even be suprised if they found links between Saddam and FARC or IRA. Nor would I be suprised about ties between Syria and Al Queda or even China and Al Queda.
 
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Herodotus    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/24/2006 2:43:26 PM
There were two types of Middle Eastern, Southwest Asia terrorist groups in the 70s and '80s: Palestinan nationalist groups that targeted Israel (Black Setpember, PLO, ANO, etc.), and Islamic fundametnalist groups (Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah). The former were secular and mostly Marxist thus they were sponsored in part by the Soviet Union and its client states in the Middle East (Egypt, Syria--after 1970, Iraq, and Libya) since the US supported Israel. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Iran and the Camp David Accords---terrrorism took on a more Islamic tone, as Iran started sponsoring Hezbollah during the Lebanon Civil War and later Hamas. After the collapse of communism and the illness of Abu Nidal and the imprisonment of Carlos the Jackal, and the various peace accords in the 1990s...support for PLO terrorism waned. Some groups wanted to keep attacking Israel, others did not. It mostly fell to Hamas with suicide bombings to attack Israel (Remmeber there weren't any Islamic suicide bombings in the 1970s). State sponsorship for this type of terrorism decreased dramatically---except for Iran, and to some lesser extent Syria. The Afgahn jihad created the other Islamic terrorists that would later make up Al Qaeda. This group is far more radical and thus it is unlikely that it ever had state sponsorship. It is willing to hit the United States in the United States...something the Soviet sponsored terrorists never considered. There was a lot of infighting among terrorist groups and within terrorist groups. The ANO had a lot of internal "purges", and Black September may have been a rival of Fatah. Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal were both kicked out of libya, Syria and for Nidal--Iraq.
 
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blooper    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda? FJV   3/26/2006 6:39:50 PM
Quote: From what I've read, terrorists always networked among each other and among governments. It's interesting that a Cell Phone used in an unsuccessful Abu Sayyaf bombing in the Philippines had been used to call an IIS Officer at the Iraqi embassy in Manila. Other contacts have come to light from documents found in Iraq linking the IIS to funding for Abu Sayyaf. Bin Laden's brother-in-law founded Abu Sayyaf. It doesn't take a bright person to trace IIS to Abu Sayyaf back to Bin Laden.
 
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swhitebull    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/26/2006 6:53:45 PM
...I never got what's so hard about believing Saddam ties to Al Queda. From what I've read, terrorists always networked among each other and among governments. All the books I've read about terrorism 80's stressed that terrorists maintain ties amongst themselves between the different organisations and with governments. It was regarded as a given. IMHO it is a no brainer to expect the average Middle Eastern dictator/madman or what have you to cultivate ties with terror organisations. I can see how promosing new organisations (like Al Queda once was) can be an interestion tool for such dictatorships.... Contrary to the MSM conventional wisdom that AQ and a hated Arab secxularist regime like Hussein's NEVER being able to work with each other because of the "religious" angle, most MSMs and liberals overlook the old Arab adage, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The recently released documents show the links going back years, which have been highlighted on my document thread concerning WMD and UNSCOM interviews. Politics make strange bedfellows, and a common hatred of the US HAD moved AQ and Iraq to work together on various projects (look at the Philipines document among several), and we know for a FACt about Salman Pak and the revolving door of terrorists that were trained there (presumably including AQ members or AQ wannabes as well). There is NO smoking gun document - yet- but its not something I would leave around waiting for some foreign power to find. But the TOTALITY of all the documents and testimony to date is building an overall picture no analyist worth his salt can overlook - to his or her detriment. swhitebull
 
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swhitebull    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda?   3/26/2006 7:04:18 PM
...State sponsorship for this type of terrorism decreased dramatically---except for Iran, and to some lesser extent Syria. The Afgahn jihad created the other Islamic terrorists that would later make up Al Qaeda.... Uh, err, um - $25,000 per family of each homocide bomber, paid by Iraq, from the very beginning of the second intifada against Israel. Ive been tracing these links in a database for the last 5 years (its what I do for a living) - terrorist organizations and their memberships, and have mapped worldwide terrorist activity in a GIS system, a la a police blotter. The database was sent to the FBI several years ago by an SP homeland security wonk last year. NOT surprisingly, of the 572 organizations Ive been tracking, 75% have been Islamic and/or Arabic in nature, as have been 75% of the members. I DO agree with Herodotus on the breakdown - the initial flury of organizations were pseudo-Marxist and/or nationalist in nature. NOW the majority are Islamo-Fascists in outlook and philosophy, with a heavy dose of antiSemitism, irredentist gobbledygook ("WE STILL OWN PARTS OF FRANCE, since we once took a crap there - it was a fluke that Charles Martel kicked out our raiding party and killed our 'abd ar-Rahmman, but we STILL own it), and a heavy dose of delusional thinking. swhitebull
 
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swhitebull    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda? FJV   3/26/2006 7:06:04 PM
...It doesn't take a bright person to trace IIS to Abu Sayyaf back to Bin Laden. ... Or possible links to Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. That might be coming out as well (see Jayna Davis' book - The Third Terrorist - for starters. swhitebull
 
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blooper    RE:Ties between Saddam and Al Queda? swhitebull    3/26/2006 7:06:18 PM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/990ieqmb.asp Have you read the latest Weekly Standard yet? Quote: "SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--"temporarily", it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group......"
 
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