Free Republic

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR IS A shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the Jersey City, New Jersey, safehouse of the plotters who would soon, in February 1993, park a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. The safehouse was the apartment of Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, who scorched his own leg while mixing the chemicals for the 1993 bomb.When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, his "pocket litter," in the parlance of the investigators, included contact...

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

As United States officials try to determine what role Al Qaeda may have had in recent attacks in Iraq, investigators and Special Forces are also pursuing two men known to have had previous connections to Osama bin Laden, American officials said this week. On a half-dozen occasions in recent weeks, one of the men, Abdul Rahman Yasin slipped through the net officials said. He has been indicted in connection with the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and is on the F.B.I.'s most wanted terrorist list. He has been living in Iraq for about 10 years. The Americans have also...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. teams in Iraq have uncovered some signs that a participant in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center may have received help from the government of Saddam Hussein after the bombing, Bush administration officials say. Vice President Dick Cheney first asserted that one of the bombers - a U.S. citizen and one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists - received help from Iraq, although he offered little detail. Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said while some evidence has been uncovered, it was too soon to reach any conclusions. Cheney, speaking Sept. 14...

I don't think Clinton ever made an issue of the fact that Iraq was harboring a man we indicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. I wonder if we will find him now and hopefully alive, so we can question him. Excerpt from Jin Hoagland column of Oct. 12, 2001: http://sixtiessurvivor.org/docs/hoagland101201.html Eight years have passed since Abdul Rahman Yasin bade hasty farewell to New York and flew to Baghdad. There he initially passed the time by fielding telephone calls placed by solicitous FBI agents and finding a niche in Saddam Hussein's police state. By all appearances, Yasin has lived...

(CBS) Abdul Rahman Yasin is the only participant in the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 who was never caught. Yasin, who was indicted in the bombing but escaped, was interviewed by CBS News' Lesley Stahl in an Iraqi installation near Baghdad last Thursday, May 23. Stahl's report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, June 2 at 7PM, ET/PT. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. He lived as a free man for a year, but the authorities in Iraq tell CBS News they put...