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Saddam Teamed Up with OBL's Wahhabists
NewsMax.com ^ | 01/09/04 | UNK

Posted on 01/09/2005 12:04:25 PM PST by SandRat

Starting in the mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein forged alliances with Muslim radicals from Saudi Arabia who practiced the same brand of militant Islam as Osama bin Laden, Saudi dissidents in London revealed last week.

In a development that experts call astonishing, the Sunni dictator made common cause with radical Wahhabists in a bid to keep Iraq's Shiite majority at bay.

"Saddam invited Muslim scholars and preachers to Iraq for his own survival," Saad Fagih, a London-based dissident, told the Associated Press. "He convinced them that Shiites are the danger." Wahhabism began trickling into Iraq nearly a decade ago, with radical Muslims coming from Saudi Arabia as well as other Arab countries. A Wahhabi mosque was even built in the Shiite holy city of Karbala at a time when Shiites were banned from worshipping their religion freely, the AP said.

In Oct. 2001, two Iraqi defectors told U.S. intelligence that they taught radical Islamists at the terrorist training camp Salman Pak to hijack U.S. aircraft in groups of four and five using small knives.

The hijack trainees, who were recruited from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco and other Mideast nations, were avid students, the defectors told the London Observer - except that they stopped five times a day to pray to Allah.

U.S. intelligence agencies eventually rejected the notion of a link between Salman Pak and the 9/11 attacks, based in part on the presumption that secularist Saddam would have never conspired with religious fundamentalists.

Officials at the CIA and State Department concluded that while hijack training did take place at Salman Pak, it was actually to instruct Iraqi counterterrorism units in anti-hijacking tactics.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaedaandiraq; globaljihad; iraq; islam; saddam; salmanpak; terrorfunding; terrorist; wahhabists
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1 posted on 01/09/2005 12:04:26 PM PST by SandRat
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To: Ragtime Cowgirl; Radix; HiJinx; Spiff; JackelopeBreeder; Da Jerdge; MJY1288; xzins; Calpernia; ...

The MSM gets IRAQ=AQ+ISLAMOFACISTS wrong again!


2 posted on 01/09/2005 12:05:34 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: SandRat

yep...

the debate isnt if Iraq was tied up with AQ or not. The debate is who was using who more. Was Saddam using OBL to settle is scores or was OBL using Saddam for money?

I think both theories hold a certain amount of truth....


3 posted on 01/09/2005 12:06:47 PM PST by MikefromOhio (Out of Baghdad!!!! But still boycotting boycotts)
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To: SandRat

MSM reporting on this?

cue the crickets.


4 posted on 01/09/2005 12:10:09 PM PST by Dr Snide (vis pacem, para bellum - Prepare for war if you want peace)
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To: SandRat
Officials at the CIA and State Department concluded that while hijack training did take place at Salman Pak, it was actually to instruct Iraqi counterterrorism units in anti-hijacking tactics.

I think we've heard quite enough from these boneheads at State and CIA.

Saddam didn't have an airline, thus no need to practice anti-hijacking tactics.

5 posted on 01/09/2005 12:10:34 PM PST by angkor
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To: Dr Snide
cue the crickets.

Exactly. That's about asfar as this will go.

6 posted on 01/09/2005 12:18:38 PM PST by elbucko (Feral Republican)
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To: SandRat

Now on to the big story...Saudi Arabia promoting terrorism with both spiritual and financial support...

The wellspring of Islamic terrorism...

imo


7 posted on 01/09/2005 12:20:10 PM PST by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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To: angkor
"In Oct. 2001, two Iraqi defectors told U.S. intelligence that they taught radical Islamists at the terrorist training camp Salman Pak to hijack U.S. aircraft in groups of four and five using small knives.

Well now, isn't THAT special!!!!!!

8 posted on 01/09/2005 12:22:20 PM PST by Enterprise
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To: SandRat
I wonder when this is going to be reported on CNN,ABC,CBS, and NBC...My guess is it never leaves FR. The media would never admit they were wrong, or didn't have all the info before they reported (Dan Rather) They would rather the public believe that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror. It's easier to bash a war on TV than it is to promote it's success.
9 posted on 01/09/2005 12:23:41 PM PST by flyitproud
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To: SandRat

Thanks for the ping!


10 posted on 01/09/2005 12:26:02 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: SandRat
Saddam Teamed Up with OBL's Wahhabists

Studies will show that 99.9999% of "old media" viewers are ignorant of this fact.

11 posted on 01/09/2005 12:27:15 PM PST by RJL
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: SandRat

I'm sorry, this can't possibly be true. Everyone KNOWS there was no connection between Saddam and terrorism. Before our unlawful and brutal invasion, Iraq was a bucolic haven of kite-flying adherents of the Religion of Peace. Haven't you seen Farenheit 9/11 or watched the network news? >sarcasm off<


13 posted on 01/09/2005 12:29:54 PM PST by Luddite Patent Counsel
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To: SandRat
Officials at the CIA and State Department concluded that while hijack training did take place at Salman Pak, it was actually to instruct Iraqi counterterrorism units in anti-hijacking tactics.

I like names not just "officials concluded"..which officials, how many, two, several,all, what did other officials conclude?...this is like "sources close to the White House" say:".....

14 posted on 01/09/2005 12:32:43 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
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To: flyitproud

after FNC picks up the story and runs with it for a few days and forces the LameStreamMedias hand.


15 posted on 01/09/2005 12:32:51 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: RJL
Studies will show that 99.9999% of "old media" viewers are ignorant of this fact.

I think you're off just a little, it should read 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% of "old media" views are ignorant of this fact and 100% of "old media" viewers are just ignorant!

16 posted on 01/09/2005 12:38:56 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: SandRat

For those not familiar with the fact that Saddam had an Beoing 707 airframe parked at Salmon Pak for terrorist training you may want to go to the following site:
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/salmanpak.htm

Also. A few years back I distincly remember seeing a documentary on mid east terrorism (perhaps it was a sixty minutes show or twenty twenty, I simply cannot remember), that actually showed the aircraft sitting at Salmom Pak which is just a few miles south of Baghad on the west side of the Tigris across from where the Osirik Nuclear plant was.
Bottom line is. Why would Saddam have a 707 sitting at a known military/terrorist training area, if not to have someone train in commercial aircraft hi-jackings?


17 posted on 01/09/2005 12:42:15 PM PST by Marine_Uncle
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To: SandRat

9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Documents Iraq/alQaeda Link
Here are a few quotes from the body of the report:

Page 66:

“In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraq intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.”

Page 66:

“According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States.”

Page 128:

On November 4, 1998, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had “reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1182042/posts



An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"


18 posted on 01/09/2005 2:24:08 PM PST by anglian
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To: anglian
and the LameStreamMedia/LEFT/ProgressiveDEMOCicCaucus/DEMOCNC/SenateDEMOCs/LEFTIST SCUM won't admit it.
19 posted on 01/09/2005 2:55:11 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: SandRat

Thank you very much for this ping.


20 posted on 01/09/2005 7:25:10 PM PST by Flora McDonald (Stand the Storm!)
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