[Wall Street Journal] Editorial - A new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq's links to world-wide terror networks, including al-Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood. Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cooperated with Hamas; the Palestine Liberation Front, which maintained a Baghdad office; Force 17, Yasser Arafat's private army; and others. The IIS gave commando training for members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the organization that assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose "emir" was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama bin Laden's second-in-command when the group merged with al-Qaeda in 1998. Captured documents "reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al-Qaeda - as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term version," the report said.
2008-03-24 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive