Lets look at a few more incidents in which Saddam supported terrorists.
Saddam Hussein supported Syrian religious extremists in the efforts to overthrow Syrian leader Hafez al Assad. In 1982 Assad brutally put down this rebellion at which point the extremists, who had formed the group Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, scattered. Some went to Iraq where they trained with Iraqis at the al Rashdiya camp outside Baghdad.
One of the Syrians who spent time at the camps was Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas who would later become the leader of al-Qaeda’s operations in Spain. He stayed in Iraq until 1986.
Yarkas was captured in Madrid in November 2001, along with papers that included a invitation to a party at the residence of the Iraqi ambassador to Spain. The invitation was addressed to Luis Galan Gonzales (a known al-Qaeda associate who took the muslim name Yusaf Galan.
It also turns out Yarkas was the roommate of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in Germany (must be a coincidence tho huh?). Since then intelligence departments around the world have found that many leaders of the al-Qaeda cells in Madrid and Hamburg, the cells that executed 9/11, were onetime Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members.
On May 5th, 1998 Iraqi state-run tv reported that vice president Taha yasin Ramadan met with leaders of the SMB in Baghdad.
What does Saddam’s relationship with SMB show us, not only that he was not hostile to Islamic Radicals as suggested by many in the left, but openly welcomed them.
How about his ties to terrorists in general…
on January 18th, 1991, the day after the first gulf war began, Indonesian police defused a bomb planted in a flower box below the window of the US ambassador’s residence in Jakarta. An Iraqi operative buried 26 sticks of TNT in the dirt while working with a team of laborers who were renovating the home. The bomb was found by a maid which prevented any serious injury.
On January 19th, 1991, Ahmed J. Ahmed and Abdul Kadham Saad, two Iraqi students living in the Philippines, attempted to detonate a bomb at a US government building. The consul general at the Iraqi embassy in Manila (Muwufak al-Ani) met with the two bombers at least 5 times in the days leading up to the attack, they even used his car to deliver the bombers to within a few blocks of their target. The bomb was accidently detonated one block short of their target when they went to check it. Saad survived the blast, badly burnt, and at the hospital he directed the nurses to notify the Iraqi embassy and recited the embassy’s number. Muwufak’s business card was found in his pocket.
But of course Saddam never supported terrorism.
How about some quotes from our esteemed politicians.
Vice Presidential candidate Gore said during the 1992 presidential campaign that Bush Sr. had a “a blantant disregard for brutal terrorism” and “a dangerous blindness to the murderous ambitions of a despot.” He would make reference to Iraq-sponsored terrorism more then a dozen times during this campaign. He even cited a study by the RAND Corporation that reported “an estimated 1,400 terrorists were operating openly out of Iraq”
On October 15, 1992 Gore said “President Bush had ample information early on to suggest that Saddam Hussein was a major danger to the region and to US interests, including information that he was aggressively seeking technologies for weapons of mass destruction and that he was offering state payments to terrorists.”
Last but certainly not least – Hillary Clinton (Oct 19th, 2002) – “Saddam Hussein has given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members”
More to come.
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