WSJ: Saddam's Files Show 'Direct' 9/11 Link

[siceone]

WSJ: Saddam's Files Show 'Direct' 9/11 Link

Newly uncovered files examined by U.S. military investigators in Baghdad show what is being described as "a direct link" between Saddam Hussein's elite Fedayeen military unit and the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who attended a January 2000 al-Qaida summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the 9/11 attacks were planned, is listed among the officers on three Fedayeen rosters reviewed by U.S. probers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

"Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel," the paper said.

Though the Journal doesn't mention it, Saddam's Fedayeen has been identified in previous reports as the group that conducted 9/11-style hijack training drills on a parked Boeing 707 airliner at the south Baghdad terrorist camp Salman Pak.

In a post obtained through Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service, Shakir was stationed at the Iraqi Embassy in Kuala Lumpur at the time of the 9/11 planning session.

Also in attendance were 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were piloting American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon.

Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, were also at the meeting, the Journal said.

When Shakir was arrested in Qatar on Sept. 17, 2001, he was carrying phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts, as well as information relating to Operation Bojinka, a plot devised by trade center bomber Ramzi Yousef that became the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.

The Qataris released Shakir after a brief detention and he fled to Jordan, where he was re-arrested. Inexplicably, however, the CIA signed off on his release after Amnesty International complained.

"He was last seen heading home to Baghdad," the Journal says.

[ghhhhhost]

so..because an ultra nationalist zealot muslim who is a part of the fedayeen goes to a meeting of other ultra nationalistic zealot muslims discussing terrorist stuff..that directly links his employer to the 9/11 attacks??

so following this logic...the United States Army is to be held accountable for the Oklahoma City bombings....since T.McVeigh was in the army @ one point..the army did train him in weapons..and possibly demolition...

this article holds as much weight as a kleenex....

[tasrit]

I find this very strange, because Saddam Hussein is an Arab nationalist and Osama bin Laden is a Islamic fundamentalist. Arab nationalist leaders have often oppress Islamic fundamentalists, because they think they're a treat for the Arab nationalist ideology.

[siceone]

What are you talking about?

TIm Mcview wasn't trained for the purpose to blow up buildings and the US military never had intentions to blow up Buildings in OKC.

the Fedayeen were trained for the purpose of terrorism. your statement is ridiculous.

[mrmatas2277]

I find this very strange, because Saddam Hussein is an Arab nationalist and Osama bin Laden is a Islamic fundamentalist. Arab nationalist leaders have often oppress Islamic fundamentalists, because they think they're a treat for the Arab nationalist ideology.

what if they have the same common enemy?

[ghhhhhost]

What are you talking about?

TIm Mcview wasn't trained for the purpose to blow up buildings and the US military never had intentions to blow up Buildings in OKC.

the Fedayeen were trained for the purpose of terrorism. your statement is ridiculous.

the fedayeen werent trained for terrorism. ive never heard of the fedayeen committing acts of terrorism...this isnt the al aqsa martyrs brigade or some shit... they were essentially elite forces, special guards of the iraq government...because one of these fedayeen went to this meeting proves shit.

this is typical "take a stab in the dark" journalism that anyone with half a functioning brain can work through.

[siceone]

the fedayeen werent trained for terrorism. ive never heard of the fedayeen committing acts of terrorism...this isnt the al aqsa martyrs brigade or some shit... they were essentially elite forces, special guards of the iraq government...because one of these fedayeen went to this meeting proves shit.

this is typical "take a stab in the dark" journalism that anyone with half a functioning brain can work through.

And you know what went on at salman pak? and you know what the orders for the Fedayeen were trained to do? what were you there? Be open to the very real possibility.

[mrmatas2277]

And you know what went on at salman pak? and you know what the orders for the Fedayeen were trained to do? what were you there? Be open to the very real possibility.

Saddam gave money to terrorist's family (hamas) once they blew themselves up...anything is possible with Saddam...even funding other terrorist cells...

[tasrit]

And you know what went on at salman pak? and you know what the orders for the Fedayeen were trained to do? what were you there? Be open to the very real possibility.

I think you want it to be true, so you can justify that the US went to war with Iraq.

[siceone]

I think you want it to be true, so you can justify that the US went to war with Iraq.

UM HELLO I agree with going to war with Iraq without this justification I don't need this to justify removing saddam.

[tasrit]

what if they have the same common enemy?

you mean the US as the common enemy? I don't think that arab nationalists see the US and Western-Europe as their enemy. They want to live like these countries.

The only common thing these two groups (nationalist arabs and Islamic fundamentalists) have is that they often abuses Islam for their own purposes

[igloo]

Iraqi official at 9-11 plot meeting

U.S. finds documents tying Saddam's man to al-Qaida

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: May 27, 2004

1:52 p.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces provide new evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Fedayeen was the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday, which was deployed to do much of the regime's dirty work.

The U.S. has never been sure Shakir was at the Kuala Lumpur meeting on behalf of Saddam's regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamist on his own, the Journal notes.

The paper cautions, however, it is possible the Shakir listed on the rosters is not the Iraqi of the same name with proven al-Qaida connections.

But sources tell the Journal the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters is not in question. Coalition forces have found millions of documents that still are being sorted, translated and absorbed, the paper said.

Reported accounts of the al-Qaida planning summit said Shakir had a job at the Kuala Lumpur airport he obtained through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy.

Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon – Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi – and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks.

Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.

Shakir left Malaysia four days after the summit finished, Jan. 13, 2000, then turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested Sept. 17, 2001, four days after the attacks.

A search uncovered phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts and information related to a 1995 al-Qaida plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.

But Shakir, inexplicably, was released after a brief detention and flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was arrested again. The Jordanians released him, however, with the OK of the CIA, after pressure from the Iraqis and Amensty International.

He was last seen returning to Baghdad.

Noting the volume of evidence, the Journal said, "One of the mysteries of postwar Iraq is why the Bush Administration and our $40-billion-a-year intelligence services haven't devoted more resources to probing the links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaida."

The current official U.S. intelligence conclusion is that Saddam's regime was not involved in supporting the Sept. 11 attacks.

A new book by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, "The Connection," puts together the evidence of Saddam's ties to al-Qaida.

"The Baathists killing U.S. soldiers are clearly working with al-Qaida now," the Journal says. "Saddam's files might show us how they linked up in the first place."

As Geostrategy-Direct reported, new evidence about a meeting in Prague between Sept. 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been uncovered. If confirmed, the meeting would indicate a role by Saddam's intelligence service in some level of support for the 9-11 plot.

The information supports other journalists who have uncovered a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, including Jayna Davis, author of "The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing."

In her book, Davis suggests the Sept. 11 attacks possibly could have been prevented if evidence of an Iraqi and al-Qaida link to the OKC bombing had been pursued.

Davis writes that in November 1997, Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini – a former Iraqi Republican Guardsman whom multiple eyewitnesses identified as McVeigh's elusive accomplice, John Doe 2 – confided to his psychiatrist that he was anxious about his airport job because "if something were to happen there, I (Al-Hussaini) would be a suspect." At the time, Al-Hussaini was employed at Boston Logan International Airport, where two of the four 9-11 suicide hijackings originated.

She also reveals court records that suggest one of bombers Timothy McVeigh's and Terry Nichols's accused Middle Eastern handlers had foreknowledge of the 9-11 plot.

In addition, Davis discusses information she first uncovered eight years ago – that Nichols learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the training of Philippines-based al-Qaida explosives expert Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

In February, columnist and author Jonathan Schanzer wrote in the Weekly Standard of his meeting in a Kurdish prison with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who claims he worked for a man who was Saddam's envoy to al-Qaida.

In the interview, al-Shamari confirmed he was involved in assisting Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida affiliate responsible for attacks against Kurdish and Western targets in northern Iraq. Weapons, "mostly mortar rounds," were supplied to the terrorists, the prisoner told Schanzer.

Besides weapons, al-Shamari says, Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat, helped the terror group financially "every month or two months."

In December, Geostrategy-Direct reported Iraqi officers interrogated by the United States and coalition officials said Saddam, through Saudi contacts, had invited al-Qaida insurgents to form suicide and other units to stop the U.S. military in March.

Saddam's contacts with al-Qaida, the officers told interrogators, preceded the Sept. 11 attacks. They said Saudi envoys arranged for al-Qaida insurgents to enter Iraq and begin training in camps around Baghdad.

The al-Qaida insurgents were trained at two camps – Nahrawan and Salman Pak – under the supervision of the Fedayeen Saddam.

Officers said the Salman Pak training included ways to hijack airplanes. Training was conducted under the supervision of an unidentified Iraqi general who is currently a police commander. They said many of the al-Qaida insurgents left Iraq after their training stint.

The London Telegraph reported in December the discovery of a secret memo to Saddam that gives details of a visit by Atta to Baghdad just weeks before the 9-11 attacks. Information obtained by Iraq's coalition goverment indicated Atta was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaida," said Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man presidential committee, according to the London paper.

"But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far," he said. "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

In November, the Weekly Standard reported a 16-page top secret government memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and Saddam had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks.