Ray Robison’s latest article on the translated Iraqi Intelligence notebook is a doozy. It details how Saddam’s regime discussed creating Al-Qaeda training camps inside Iraq. Weird, I thought the left said there was never any ties between Saddam and Al-Qaeda?
Newly declassified documents captured by U.S. forces indicate that Saddam Hussein’s inner circle not only actively reached out to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and terror-based jihadists in the region, but also hosted discussions with a known Al Qaeda operative about creating jihad training “centers,” possibly in Baghdad.
Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group (ISG), supervised a group of linguists to analyze, archive and exploit the hundreds of captured documents and materials of Saddam’s regime.
[…]The relationship between the Taliban and Saddam appears to have been mediated by a Pakistani named Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Another document captured in Afghanistan and written by an Al Qaeda operative confirms the relationship between the Maulana and Saddam. The translation provided here includes an early 1999 meeting between the director of the IIS and the Maulana.
Another notebook entry records a meeting with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghani Islamic Jihadist and leader of the Islamic Party in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar made news recently with the BBC article Afghan Rebel’s pledge to al-Qaeda that reports on a video statement from Hekmatyar in which he states he will fight alongside A Qaeda. In this translation, Hekmatyar makes specific requests for a “center” in Baghdad and/or Tajikistan.
A third meeting involves an Islamist representing Bangladesh that we believe to be Fazlur Rahman Khalil. Another page of the notebook indicates Khalil is coming or came to Iraq. Khalil is a Taliban/Al Qaeda associate who signed the 1998 fatwa from Usama bin Laden declaring war on the United States.
Translation:
Translation for ISGP-2003-0001412 follows (PDF):
Page 70, Left Side:
Saturday 3/20 at 11:45
Met with him Mr. MS4 (translator’s note: MS4 is the code name for the high ranking IIS official).
1. Intelligence and security cooperation.
2. Mr. MS4 informed him that the Iraqi president and Iraqi leadership are interested in him.
3. “We are ready to help you in any country and against your enemies”. (translator’s note: most probably this is MS4)
4. Fadlul Haq – The governor of Peshawar that was assassinated.
(translator’s note: points 5 and 6 are direct quotes from the Afghani)
5. “We are facing a vicious international plot against the Islamic Party and cannot find any country to help us at the time being”.
6. “Iran helped us at the beginning and we brought 2,000 fighters but things changed at the time being. Also the Russians called to help but we do not trust them. Moscow and Iran want the war to drag on.” (RR: this is probably the Taliban vs. Northern Alliance conflict). This is why he is coming to Baghdad for help. Asked Baghdad to help open a center in Tajikistan or in Baghdad and they will bring them (translator’s note: not clear what them refers to) in through Iran or Northern Iraq.
He asked for help in printing Afghani money in Baghdad or help in printing it in Moscow.
Page 69, Right Side:
Stinger missiles have a range of 5 kilometers. (translator’s note: there is only this one sentence on this page)
Page 69, Left Side:
Meeting of MS4 with 6951 on 4/10 at 8 p.m. in room 710.
He (6951) inquired about our relation with Usama (bin Laden).
(translator’s note: The Iraqi answer is not reported.).
He (6951) proposed to the Taliban to form a front with Iraq, Libya and Sudan.
He met some of them in Hajj (Translator’s note: Pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, it is one of the five pillars of Islam) and he came to the conclusion that they do not know anything about Foreign Relations.
The Taliban defense minister is Abdul Razzak (unclear) Association of Muslim Clerics.
They openly claim that they are against America.
He said that he was ready to build relations between the Taliban and Iraq.
(translator’s note: meeting continues on both sides of page 68/76, with questions about Pakistani politics and the other Islamic parties.) The Iraqi official says, “I suggest that the parties come closer together because that means power to Islam against the American and Zionist policies”.
Page 39, Left Side:
Meeting with an Islamist leader from Bangladesh. He promises support to Iraq. He says: “Let them know that I made Bangladesh a second country to Mr. President and we have 125 million (people).” (RR: Although no name is given for this meeting, it is important to note Fazlur Rahman Khalil, noted for meeting with Iraqi officials in the previous article, signed the 1998 fatwa as “Fazlur Rahman, Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh”. This is a strong indication that this meeting is with Khalil or his representative.)
Page 27, Left side:
(translator’s note: contains notes with information on prior meetings recorded in the notebook.)
The mentioned person (Translator’s note: Fazlur Rahman) arrived to the country on 11/27/1999 and he was hosted in Al Rachid Hotel suite number 526. He will leave on 12/1/1999.
(translator’s comment: note No. 1 in a list of notes.)
He visited Iraq on the beginning of April 1999 and the ex-director of the intelligence, may God rest his soul, instructed him to mediate between the Taliban and the leader of the Afghani Islamic party, Hekmatyar following the request for mediation done by Hekmatyar to the leadership of Iraq during a visit when they met us on 3/19/1999.
End Translation
Analysis:Because Arabic writing is right to left, the pages in this notebook go in reverse chronological order. The note on page 27 indicates that Hekmatyar met with the IIS on March 19, 1999. The translation of page 70 is dated March 20 and it refers to someone from the Islamic Party, which is Hekmatyar’s group. Therefore it makes sense that the meeting on page 70 is with Hekmatyar.
The note on page 27 also says the meeting was with the director if the IIS, so we believe MS4 is his code-name. It appears that Hekmatyar, a jihadist leader warring with the Taliban for control of Afghanistan at the time, asked Baghdad “to help open a center in Tajikistan or in Baghdad and they will bring them (translator’s note: not clear what them refers to) in through Iran or Northern Iraq.” There is a strong indication that this requested “center” is a jihadist training camp.
From a US Department of State report Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1996:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar … maintained training and indoctrination facilities in Afghanistan, mainly for non-Afghans. They continue to provide logistic support and training facilities to Islamic extremists despite military losses in the past year. Individuals who trained in these camps were involved in insurgencies in … Tajikistan…
It looks very much like Hekmatyar, a long-time jihad leader and recently self-identified Al Qaeda associate, is asking the Saddam regime for a jihad training camp in Tajikistan and/or Baghdad.
He then proceeds to detail what we have learned through the notebook, specifically Saddam’s contacts with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Most interesting is the connection between Saddam and Maulana Rahman, who may very well have assisted in the planning and funding 9/11.
In this notebook, we see a Saddam Hussein actively seeking to expand his sphere of influence in a region at the heart of the world-wide Islamic jihad movement.
This now-public relationship between Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Saddam Hussein deserves great scrutiny.
As we researched the Maulana, a picture came into focus that our team was not looking to find: The Maulana is a senior leader of an affiliation of Pakistani groups supportive of Islamic jihad. These groups include the JUI and the Jamaat Islami (JI). The JUI provided direct support to both the planner and paymaster of the 9/11 attacks. The Pakistani government accused the JI of working with Al Qaeda. The Maulana mediated an intelligence pact between the IIS and the Taliban.
Clearly, this evidence indicates that the Maulana was in a position to procure assistance from Iraq for the 9/11 attacks.
Dr. Laurie Mylroie, an expert on Iraq, testified in front of the 9/11 commission in 2003:
After al Qaeda moved to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became deeply involved with it, probably, with the full agreement of Usama bin Ladin. Al Qaeda provided the ideology, foot soldiers, and a cover for the terrorist attacks; Iraqi intelligence provided the direction, training, and expertise…
This notebook demonstrates that Islamic jihad leaders in Afghanistan were seeking IIS assistance and Saddam was giving them that assistance.
We now know that Saddam had many many contacts with terrorists. He helped train them, he helped fund them, and even offered to set up training camps for them.
Did his assistance to these groups help the 9/11 planners also?
Other’s Blogging:
See author page
And I agree, will we be proven wrong at a later date? Who knows. I do not think Iraq gave any any operational help to AQ in regards to 9/11 but I do believe, and the Saddam documents are bearing this out, that Iraq did have ties and did indeed help AQ in their overall operations. Could this include 9/11? Who knows at this point.
Well for one thing, please don’t take Wikipedia content as gospel. It’s well known that it can be quite biased.
As far as Salman Pak I will have to refer back to the documents coming out of Saddam’s regime:
Please quote a source that tells us that Czech has now backed off of their story. I have not seen one.
Not sure what your asking about Yasin…do I believe the administrations view on him?
And as far as the lefty blog you linked to in number 5, I haven’t looked at it but will tomorrow.
Just checked out your blogs and like them….will check them out more often.
Hey; I like your blog. I also have a blog on possible Iraq-Al Qaeda connections @ http://iraqandalqaeda.blogspot.com; check out the timelines. I currently believe that there were many instances of operational contact between Iraq and Al Qaeda, including 9/11, but there are a few facts that are hard to reconcile with my thesis. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the following issues:
1. Bush recently stated that Iraq had “nothing” to do with 9/11.
2. Regarding Salman Pak:
Wikipedia: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has since established that both the CIA and the DIA concluded that there was no evidence to support these claims. A DIA analyst told the Committee, “The Iraqi National Congress (INC) has been pushing information for a long time about Salman Pak and training of al-Qa’ida.” Knight Ridder reporters Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel noted in November 2005 that “After the war, U.S. officials determined that a facility in Salman Pak was used to train Iraqi anti-terrorist commandos.”[Seattle Times, 1 November 2005, p. A5].
Inconsistencies in the stories of the defectors led U.S. officials, journalists, and investigators to conclude that the Salman Pak story was inaccurate. One senior U.S. official said that they had found “nothing to substantiate” the claim that al-Qaeda trained at Salman Pak. [6][7] The credibility of the defectors has been questioned due to their association with the Iraqi National Congress, an organization that has been accused of deliberately supplying false information to the US government in order to build support for an invasion of Iraq.[8] “The INC’s agenda was to get us into a war,” said Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News. [9]
Weapons inspector Richard Sperzel clarified that [Duelfer’s] dismissal [of the claim that Salman Pak was for counterterrorism] was not backed up by any evidence.
Iraqi defectors have been talking lately about the training camp at Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. They say there’s a Boeing aircraft there. That’s not true… They say there are railroad mock-ups, bus mock-ups, buildings, and so on. These are all things you’d find in a hostage rescue training camp, which is what this camp was when it was built in the mid-1980s with British intelligence supervision. In fact, British SAS special operations forces were sent to help train the Iraqis in hostage rescue techniques. Any nation with a national airline and that is under attack from terrorists — and Iraq was, from Iran and Syria at the time — would need this capability. Iraq operated Salman Pak as a hostage rescue training facility up until 1992. In 1992, because Iraq no longer had a functioning airline, and because their railroad system was inoperative, Iraq turned the facility over to the Iraqi Intelligence service, particularly the Department of External Threats. These are documented facts coming out of multiple sources from a variety of different countries. The Department of External Threats was created to deal with Kurdistan, in particular, the infusion of Islamic fundamentalist elements from Iran into Kurdistan. So, rather than being a camp dedicated to train Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, it was a camp dedicated to train Iraq to deal with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. And they did so. Their number one target was the Islamic Kurdish party, which later grew into Al Ansar. … Ansar comes out of Iran and is supported by Iranians. Iraq, as part of their ongoing war against Islamic fundamentalism, created a unit specifically designed to destroy these people.[14]
Consensus view
Douglas MacCollam wrote in the July/August 2004 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review that “There still remain claims and counterclaims about what was going on at Salman Pak. But the consensus view now is that the camp was what Iraq told UN weapons inspectors it was — a counterterrorism training camp for army commandos.”[19]
Also, regarding Salman Pak, Stephen Birmingham makes the following counterarguments:
This raised a red flag with me because 1) a history was fast emerging of a controversial Iraqi opposition group that coached and actively promoted defectors that were patently untrustworthy, 2) there was possible motive in this case, as al-Qurairy probably dare not return home until Saddam and his sons were removed from power, and 3) the two defectors are friends and their shared account — circulated shortly after 9/11, when emotions were running high — sounded altogether too convenient.
The remainder of Birmingham’s lengthy argument can be found at http://yourplanetisdoomed.blogspot.com/2005/12/salman-pak-911-pure-fantasy.html. He also argues that Saddam’s apparent Islamization was phony in a comment on the same page.
3. There seems to be no indications that Czech officials stand by the Atta-in-Prague story as of 2006. Cheney, Tenet, etc. have dismissed it.
4. Regarding Yasin:
Vice President Cheney had told Meet the Press on December 9 , 2001, that Iraq was harboring Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing [26], and repeated the statement in another appearance on September 14, 2003, saying “We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaida sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaida organization. We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.” [27], and once again in an interview with National Public Radio in January, 2004, stating that there was “overwhelming evidence” of a relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida based on evidence including Iraq’s purported harboring of Yasin [28].
5. Also, http://outsidethespectrum.blogspot.com/2006/01/disinformation_07.html has what appear to be strong arguments against the Iraq and Al Qaeda allegations of T. Joscelyn, S. Hayes, et al.
Thanks very much for your time.
WRH
Boy oh boy…lookie what they are talking about over at Free Republic this morning:
Very interesting. Just who in the hell DID ask Murtha to intervene in the NYT story…and just WHAT did he tell them to do…Publish or Not Publish??? More than a few people are scratching their heads.
Back on topic, I heard on Fox yesterday, that there is one guy whose determined that at least four sites are completely investigated for WMDs in Iraq. Why we haven’t til now is puzzling and a little disturbing to me. Training camps have been discovered all over Iraq during the war, I thought. Am I wrong?
Carol
I’m not holding my breath that the MSM will cover this anytime soon.
See this e I just shared with some other bloggers on Ray’s great work.
RBT
*****
OK all you Bloggers this is going to be big. SPREAD THE WORD!!!
It will crush the LL and MSM meme, “Bush Lied. Bush Died!”
See this new piece by Roy Robison at FoxNews.com
This is extremely critical if we have to face down the growing Iranian nuclear threat.
Just like the Third Reich, the Saddam Regime kept very detailed records of their attrocities. I guess it goes with this form of meglomania. Perhaps Dr. Sanity and Dr. Helen could comment on this.
These docs are a treasure trove like the Arc of the Covenant in the Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc. As you may recall we last saw the Arc languishing on a shelf in some government warehouse soon to be forgotten.
It’s amazing to me that the Bush administration is not firing back on the LL and the MSM on this and other relevation about Iraqi WMD. I’m guessing the foggy bottom folks don’t want to disclose the Russian, Chinese, and French fingerprints all over this stuff. The State folks believe their support is necessary to reign in the Mad Mullahs and don’t want to embarass them in public.
The only problem is that the President MAD and his religious mentor Imam Yazdi are on a crusade to hasten the return of the 12th Imam and bring about Armageddon no matter what the rest of the world may think or do.
See the American Thinker
and these pieces at Rocketsbrain:
Here and Here
We need to bring this story directly to the American people and screw the MSM. The MSM of late has been in bed with or at the very least stooges of the enemy in War of Information in the GWOT. We need the political support and will of the American people to topple the Mad Mullahs of Iran.
If the UN Oil for Food Scandal is any example of the MSM response, it took over a year before this story started to break the light of day. It was only through the dogged efforts of Eric Shawn (FoxNews) and Claudia Rosen (WSJ) that this story finally emerged.