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"You are exactly right, and let me tell you one thing: those people, who say Iraq is not ready for democracy, are racists. They are absolute racists! They are saying that the Iraqi people are neither intelligent enough nor mature enough to be able to experience democracy."

Opponents of the war say the only Al Qaeda elements in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion were those in Kurdish areas not controlled by Saddam. This simply is not so, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. And if so, would not the U.S. – as a critical front in the global war on terror – have to invade those areas to shut down the Al Qaeda cells? Of course. And that in itself would have been a far more dangerous “limited war” with Iraq involving a direct ground confrontation with Saddam’s army anyway.

FOR years, Massoud Dehnamaki was known widely as the feared enforcer of conservative rules that restricted freedom for women and society. In recent years, however, he has emerged as Iran's Michael Moore, having directed a documentary on the taboo issue of prostitution and another forthcoming film on soccer as a metaphor of political struggle. Reformists and conservatives alike harshly criticized Mr. Dehnamaki for making the first movie, "Poverty and Prostitution." Conservatives were furious that one of their own had not only highlighted an un-Islamic social pathology but seemed to sympathize with the prostitutes. Reformists believed he deliberately exaggerated the problem...

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

A look at the Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam, blamed for attacks in Iraq and supported by a network of members in Europe, according to authorities. -HISTORY: Founded in late 2001 in Kurdish part of northern Iraq by Mullah Krekar, who has lived as refugee in Norway since 1991. Area was beyond Saddam Hussein's control thanks to Western-enforced no-fly zones. Supporters set up an enclave near the Iranian border ruled by strict Islamic law. Members trained in Afghanistan and provided safe haven to al-Qaida members fleeing after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. -SIZE: Ansar al-Islam fighters in Iraq, believed to...

OSLO (AFP) - The founder of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam was questioned in Oslo by German police ahead of the arrests in Germany of three men suspected of plotting to attack visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allaiwi. German police interrogated Mullah Krekar in Oslo early last week and he is thought to be linked to at least one of the men arrested on Friday on suspicion of planning attacks during Allawi's visit, the Norwegian daily VG reported Sunday. All three have been ordered held over their alleged membership of Ansar al-Islam, described by German authorities as a foreign terrorist...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

http://www.globalterroralert.com/alibapirwamy.pdfhttp://www.globalterroralert.com"U.S. intelligence sources have indicated that Iraqi insurgent groups are being partly financed by large donations from Saudi-run Islamic charitable groups. An undated photo shows Ali Bapir, an Iraqi supporter of Ansar al-Islam detained by U.S. authorities, hosting an event in Iraq sponsored by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia."

Globalterroralert.com 10/21/04http://www.globalterroralert.com/ansarsunnah1004-4.pdf "Those of us from the Ansar Al-Sunnah Army celebrate and congratulate the Muslims and all of our mujahideen brothers in the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement on the occasion of their inclusion on the list of terrorists... Praise be to Allah, it increased the joy in our hearts that John Kerry, the presidential candidate, has criticized the Bush government for taking so long in making this declaration. The one who may become the president of America is already struck with terror by our brothers from the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement. The repeated attacks that have targeted the evil Bush are now...

http://www.globalterroralert.com/ansarsunnah-nepal.pdfGlobalterroralert.com (8/22/04): The Ansar al-Sunnah Army in Iraq has published fourteen photos that allegedly depict a dozen captives taken within the past few days from among a group of Nepalese contract workers. In a statement published on August 21, Ansar al-Sunnah had explained, "these infidels carried out contracting work for the crusader American forces, and thus they aided and supported them in their fight against Islam and its people"

ALBANY, N.Y. — Federal agents and Albany police raided a Muslim mosque overnight Wednesday and arrested two men for helping someone they thought was a terrorist, a law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News on Thursday. A block of downtown Albany (search) was sealed off with armed officers for several hours after the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque (search) and two Albany-area residences, officials said. Yassin Muhhiddin Aref, 34, the Imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, the 49-year-old founder of the mosque, were arrested early Thursday morning....

ROME - Anti-terrorism police arrested the Algerian cleric of a mosque and four Tunisians Sunday in a crackdown authorities said was aimed at preventing an al-Qaida-linked cell from sending suicide attackers to Iraq (news - web sites). The suspects were seized in pre-dawn raids in three cities in the northern Tuscany region, Genoa's Police Chief Oscar Fiorolli said. Genoa, a northern port city, began the investigations that led to the arrests. The suspects allegedly belonged to a cell of Ansar al-Islam, an organization based in northern Iraq with links to al-Qaida, Fiorolli told the Associated Press in Rome in a...

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...

Bashar Assad’s Syria: The Next Target in the War on Terror Compiled By: Ryan Mauro tdcanalyst@optonline.net On January 23, 2004 Jane’s Intelligence Report had Rumsfeld quoted as saying that the United States was considering a multi-faceted attack on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, to wipe out terrorists there including Hezbollah. Limited action in Somalia was also mentioned.[1] The increased pressure on Syria certainly shows an escalating series of events that could culminate in such limited strikes. People in the Bekaa Valley have reported that a US military attaché to our embassy in Beirut has been seen visiting the area with military escort.[2]...

<p>BIYARA, Iraq - A terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida that escaped a U.S.-led attack last March has reconstituted itself and is involved in the recent wave of car bombings and other suicide attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.</p>

According to Barton Gellman, writing in the March 23rd edition of the Washington Post, “Al Qaeda leaders, long known to covet biological and chemical weapons, have reached at least the threshold of production and may have manufactured some of them, according to a newly obtained cache of documentary evidence and interrogations recently conducted by the U.S. government.” Gellman describes the al Qaeda biochemical weapons program as being more advanced than originally thought, and included the ability to produce their own low-grade anthrax. This information comes from data captured with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and is chilling news, but not unexpected. Al...

Biyara, controlled by militant Islamists until the US-led war, is wary of news that such groups may be returning. By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BIYARA, IRAQ - The merchant shuddered when told that Islamic militants of Ansar Al Islam - the Al Qaeda-backed group dispersed by American bombs last March - may be returning to Iraq. "If they come to my orchard, I will shoot them myself!" vows Shaho Abdulkarim, a merchant-smuggler with a perfect moustache. Such a visceral reaction is common in this village on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran, where Ansar imposed...

The American-led administration in Iraq has received intelligence reports that hundreds of Islamic militants who fled Iraq during the war have returned and are planning to conduct major terrorist attacks. L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, said in an interview on Friday night that fighters from Ansar al-Islam, a militant organization that the United States tried to destroy during the war, had escaped to Iran and then slipped back across the border into Iraq. He said hundreds of the militants were now in Iraq, where they were preparing to attack the occupation forces or administration. Advertisement...

Norway charges Kurdish Islamist with terrorism OSLO, March 21 (Reuters) - The Iraqi Kurdish leader of Ansar al-Islam, accused by Washington of having ties to al Qaeda, was charged with terrorist offences on Friday in Norway, his lawyer said. Mullah Krekar was detained late on Thursday on the grounds he might flee the country while under police investigation into his links to Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), which Washington labels a terrorist group. "He has been charged with terrorism," his attorney Brynjar Meling told Reuters outside an Oslo courtroom where judges were considering whether there were sufficient grounds to keep...

<p>The former stronghold of the militant Islamic group Ansar al-Islam looked like a ghost town yesterday, after die-hard fighters fled into a network of caves and bunkers in the rugged, mountainous terrain along the Iranian border.</p> <p>The militants were chased out Friday under heavy bombardment by US special forces troops and Kurdish soldiers. Fighting resumed at dusk yesterday amid reports US forces were under fire on a ridge above Sargat, another village held by the guerrillas.</p>

<p>NORTHERN IRAQ (CNN) --U.S. forces have begun combing a bombed site in northern Iraq in search of chemical and biological weapons after airstrikes hit the facility this weekend, the top U.S. general said Sunday.</p> <p>The complex is believed to be where the lethal poison ricin was produced for an alleged plot to attack London, England, that has since been foiled, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.</p>

- A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an extremist Islamic group turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking the group to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday. The cache of documents at the Ansar al-Islam compound, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as Washington...

HALABJA, Iraq - U.S. specialists have discovered evidence that a Kurdish Islamic militant group that the Bush administration has linked to al-Qaida was concocting chemical weapons in the mountains of northeastern Iraq, a U.S. military commander said Tuesday. The special forces soldiers also found recipes for three forms of chlorine gas and for ricin, a deadly toxin derived from castor beans, American intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. U.S. aircraft, 100 American special forces and more than 8,000 Kurdish fighters on Friday swept the Ansar al Islam ("Partisans of Islam") militants out of the sliver of territory...

Ansar al-Islam prepares for suicide attacks DUBAI: The militant movement Ansar al-Islam, which Washington links to Al Qaeda and has attacked repeatedly in Iraqi Kurdistan during the war, has redeployed and is preparing suicide attacks against coalition forces, a statement on an Islamist webpage said on Monday. The statement signed by “the Ansar al-Islam commmand” said that “after the air strikes on its bases in northern Iraq by the Crusader invaders, it has decided to move the bases of the mujahideen so as not to be a direct target of air attacks. “Our bases in northern Iraq were completely evacuated...

<p>March 31, 2003 -- WASHINGTON- The U.S.-led coalition has destroyed "a massive terrorist facility" in northern Iraq that al Qaeda may have used to make the deadly ricin found in London, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers revealed yesterday.</p> <p>He said some of the bodies found there are "most likely al Qaeda," which could offer a link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's terror network.</p>

Al-Sulaymaniyah, Iraq: The chairmanship of the [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK-led, Iraqi] Kurdistan regional government has issued a general amnesty to the misguided Kurds in the ranks of the terrorist Ansar al-Islam. The general amnesty statement said: After the malevolent intentions of the servants of the dictatorial Aflaqi authority, the killer of the Kurds, and the lowly slaves of the terrorist al-Qa'ida band has been exposed, what they [Ansar al-Islam] perpetrate against the masses can be described as nothing but treachery, murder and assault against the Kurds; subservience to the foreigner; perpetration of savage crime; and blatant breach of the...

[Unattributed report: "Following the martyrdom operation of Anab, the crusaders' B-52 warplanes, intensify their bombardment, using fragmentation and smart bombs"] Following the success of the martyring operation in Anab, which caused significant and heavy damage to the forces of crusaders and apostates, they were forced to hide their losses and prevent journalists and correspondents of satellite TV channels to go to the area. Adding to that, they strongly threatened the media channels that if they reported this operation of Ansar [al-Islam, Kurdish: Pishtiwanani Islam la Kurdistan, PIK], they would be arrested like [the correspondent of] Al-Jazirah, or expelled. As vengeance...

<p>A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of a prominent Kurdish politician in northern Iraq on Thursday night, officials said.</p> <p>No other casualties were reported.</p> <p>Security officials at the scene said they believed the man was a member of the Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam, which the United States has accused of harboring fugitives from Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.</p>

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Iraq has rejected U.S. claims of links to a Kurdish terrorist group believed connected to al-Qaida, and said it has offered to hand over a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Baghdad had no ties to Ansar al-Islam nor an alleged al-Qaida fugitive Abu Musaab Zarqawi, who has been linked to the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and poison plots in a half-dozen European countries. Sabri, in a 13-page letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to rebut U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the...

Ansar Al-Islam: Iraq's Al-Qaeda ConnectionBy Jonathan SchanzerThe Washington Institute for Near East Policy | January 17, 2003 Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda affiliate active in Iraqi Kurdistan since September 2001, is a prototype of America's enemies in the "war on terror." The group serves as a testament to the global spread of al-Qaeda affiliates, achieved through exploitation of weak central authorities and a utilitarian willingness to work with seemingly differing ideologies for a common cause. Lengthy reports on Ansar have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and Kurdish leaders have given Washington a plethora of...

<p>Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.</p> <p>A former Canadian resident is a key commander and ideologue with Ansar al-Islam, a group the United States considers to be the terrorist link between Al Qaeda and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, says a captured Ansar member.</p> <p>Ali and another Ansar prisoner interviewed by the Star, 20-year-old Didar Khaled Khedr, said two former Iraqi intelligence agents are among Ansar's leaders - Abu Zurbeh and Abu Wahil.</p>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"/> January 13, 2003 Kurds Face a Second Enemy: Islamic Fighters on Iraq FlankBy C. J. CHIVERS HINERWE MOUNTAIN, Iraq, Jan. 12 — Peering down from this snowcapped peak, Khakamend Khakarush Omar, a Kurdish military commander who has spent his life resisting Saddam Hussein, pointed to villages in the valley below. All are under enemy control, ringed by bunkers and armed bearded men. The enemy gunmen on the opposing ridge are not in Mr. Hussein's army. They pay no allegiance to any state. They are fighters for Ansar al Islam, a group of militants...