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WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told American interrogators the meeting never happened, according to United States officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the United States in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. American officials caution that Mr. Ani may...

Newly released police testimony of al-Qaeda member Louai Sakka found in case records has come the fore. In Sakka’s statements it is written that he is the one who provided two terrorists with a passport before they organized the September 11 attacks. Sakka's testimony also gives us some clues that Murat Yuce, the Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq, was killed by a terrorist of Sakka's choice. There were also some Turkish people who took part in the execution of Yuce. The following was the structure of al-Qaeda, according to Sakka: Leader Osama bin Laden, His assistants: Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs...

History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard. It's not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can't be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn't really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War...

A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told US interrogators the meeting never happened, according to US officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the US in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague in the Czech Republic, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. US officials caution that Ani may have been lying...

Saddam Hussein's son Uday planned to carry out an attack in London to assassinate the leader of an Iraqi opposition group in April 2000, it is being reported. According to the U.K.'s Times of London newspaper, a new Pentagon study based on documents seized during the Iraq war reveal an aborted plot by Uday Hussein's elite paramilitary group — the Fedayeen — to kill London-based Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress. Documents show that Fedayeen's orders were to carry out assassinations and bombings in London, the Times reported. While the study showed no link between Saddam Hussein's regime...

Breaking News from 1998. The US released an indictment on November 4, 1998 stating bin Laden and al Qaeda were working with the Saddam and the Iraqi regime to develop weapons of mass destruction. What is all the pussyfooting about? From New York Times and Facts on File -- articles from November 1998. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company  The New York Times  View Related Topics  November 5, 1998, Thursday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 2; Foreign Desk  LENGTH: 1093 words HEADLINE: SAUDI IS INDICTED IN BOMB ATTACKS ON U.S. EMBASSIES BYLINE:  By BENJAMIN WEISER  BODY:A Federal...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

A US-led coalition air strike killed a chemical weapons specialist with the Islamic State group in Iraq who once worked for Saddam Hussein, US military officers said on Friday. The air raid carried out last Saturday near Mosul took out Abu Malik, whose training "provided the terrorist group with expertise to pursue a chemical weapons capability," the military said in a statement. Malik had worked at a chemical weapons production plant under Saddam's regime and later forged an affiliation with al Qaeda in Iraq in 2005, before joining the extremist IS group, according to Central Command. "His death is expected...

How many times have we heard members of the media say, “We know now that there were no ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda”? Typically, people make this claim based on any combination of four sources: President Bush’s 9/17/03 statement, Sec. Powell’s 1/8/04 statement, the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report of 7/22/04 or the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s (SSCI) report on Pre-war Iraq intelligence reports: 7/7/04. Yet, in each of these cases, the very quotations that opponents of the war in Iraq point towards as definitive claims of “no ties” are only half quotes. When they refer to President Bush’s...

As soldiers and Marines by the hundreds of thousands return home from Iraq they are telling their stories. They are telling family and friends of what they saw and of who they fought. They are writing books that tell of their experiences. Amazon.com is full of them. They have fought and lived through a dramatic and on-going historical event. To them it is real-not politics and so they tell the truth. They describe an invasion and an occupation where Islamic extremists and Iraqi thugs are the enemy. They tell tales of a fight against terrorists; people who rammed cars filled...

Many of the quasi-conclusions are based largely on claims of innocence from Saddam Hussein, “a top official in Saddam’s government, Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Kattab al-Tikriti,” Tariq Aziz and Faruq Hijazi. These are 4/7 of the primary players in any involvement or potential involvement between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda. The other 3 primary players are Mohammed al-Douri (He is Saddam’s VP/muscle man/Thug-In-Charge who remains at large. He is also suspected of being the primary source for most of a large portion of the insurgency and most reports place him as directing operations from inside Syria). The last 2 primary players...

<p>WASHINGTON — A 7-pound block of cyanide salt (search) was discovered by U.S. troops in Baghdad at the end of January, officials confirmed to Fox News.</p> <p>The potentially lethal compound was located in what was believed to be the safe house of Abu Musab Zarqawi (search), a poisons specialist described by some U.S. intelligence officials as having been a key link between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda (search) terror network.</p>

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A former Iraqi general, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is reported to be coordinating attacks in Iraq by foreign fighters and Iraqi regime loyalists, a US defense official said. "There are reports that the al-Douri is coordinating the attacks," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The reports in military channels fingering al-Douri as the coordinator of the attacks probably came from the recent capture in Mosul of a former secretary of al-Douri and two senior members of Ansar al-Islam who were close to the general, the official said. Number six on the US list of 55...

LONDON [MENL] -- Aides of deposed President Saddam Hussein, under the guise of Al Qaida fighters, have been leading the insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Islamic sources said many of the Al Qaida-aligned cells that have appeared over the last two years stemmed from units in the Saddam military. The sources said Baathist operatives have adopted Islamic identities to exploit support among Muslims for Al Qaida. The Baathist strategy was formed during Saddam's rule, the sources said. They pointed to the "Return to Faith Campaign" directed by then-Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, which sought to curry...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

Japan-China: Four Chinese military aircraft --two H-6 bombers and two Y-8 surveillance aircraft -- flew southeast from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean over waters between the Okinawa main island and Miyako on Friday afternoon, according to officials at Japan's Joint Staff Office. The Japanese Air Self Defense Force scrambled fighters. Later, the Chinese aircraft returned on the same route. Japanese officials said it is the third time that Chinese military planes have been spotted flying over waters between the Okinawa main island and Miyako Island. Last Wednesday, five Chinese navy ships passed between the two islands and...

BAGHDAD, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's al-Qaida front on Friday claimed responsibility in an online statement for series of massive bombings in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and other areas that killed and wounded hundreds of people. A series of bombings and shootings, mainly in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, recently left hundreds of people killed and wounded, including over 150 people in the last 10 days, in the latest escalation of months-long violence in the country. The statement said that the attacks targeted government headquarters, security and military centers and Shiite strongholds along with the "traitors of the Sunnis"...

Image that accompanied Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's audiotape announcing the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The flag was originally al Qaeda in Iraq's banner, but has been adopted by other al Qaeda affiliated and associated groups. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. The emir of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), has announced a new brand for his organization's efforts: the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The new name replaces all previous brands used by al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria, including the...

Uncomfirmed reports in Iraqi media said, Sunday, that security forces have arrested Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the top leader of the Al-Qaeda international terror network in Iraq. Abu-Bakr was named head of a number of terror organizations following the killing of Abu-Omar Al-Baghdadi in a United States air strike in 2010. .....

In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...