Report: Saddam Harbored Terrorists Who Killed Americans

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Report: Saddam Harbored Terrorists Who Killed Americans

Saddam Hussein supplied financial support, training and shelter for an array of deadly terrorist organizations right up until the onset of the Iraq war a year ago, including such notorious groups as Hamas, Ansar al-Islam, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Abu Nidal Organization and the Arab Liberation Front, according to a comprehensive report released by the Hudson Institute.

Titled "Saddam's Philanthropy of Terror," the report details the role played by terrorists supported by Saddam's regime in an array of infamous attacks that have killed hundreds of American citizens both inside and outside the U.S. before and after the Sept. 11 attacks - including the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Palestinian Intifada.

Compiled by Deroy Murdock, a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va., and columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service, the report chronicles Saddam's support for:

Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was indicted for mixing the chemicals for the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six New Yorkers and injured over 1,000. Yasin fled to Baghdad after the attack, where he was given sanctuary and lived for years afterward.

Khala Khadar al-Salahat, a top Palestinian deputy to Abu Nidal, who reportedly furnished Libyan agents with the Semtex explosive used to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. The attack killed all 259 passengers, including 189 Americans. Al-Salahat was in Baghdad last April and was taken into custody by U.S. Marines.

Abu Nidal, whose terror organization is credited with dozens of attacks that killed over 400 people, including 10 Americans, and wounding 788 more. Nidal lived in Baghdad from 1999 till August 2002, when he was found shot to death in his state-supplied home.

Abu Abbas, who masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, during which wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer was pushed over the side to his death. U.S. troops captured Abbas in Baghdad on April 14, 2003. He died in U.S. custody last week.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who ran an Ansar al-Islam terrorist training camp in northern Iraq and reportedly arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan. Al Zarqawi is still at large.

Ramzi Yousef, who entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport and was the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as well as Operation Bojinka, a foiled plot to explode 12 U.S. airliners over the Pacific. Bojinka was later adopted by Yousef's cousin Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the blueprint for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Arrested in Pakistan in 1995, Yousef is currently serving a triple life sentence in Colorado's Supermax federal lockup.

Mahmoud Besharat, the Palestinian businessman who traveled to Baghdad in March 2002 to collect funding from Saddam for the Palestinian Intifada. Besharat and others disbursed the funds in payments of $10,000 to $25,000 to West Bank families of terrorists who died trying to kill Israelis.

After Saddam announced his Intifada reward plan, 28 Palestinian homicide bombers killed 211 Israelis in attacks that also killed 12 Americans. A total of 1,209 people were injured