More from the IPP report:
Secret Islamic Palestinian Organization established after the war. It believes
in armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests. They
also believe our leader [Saddam Hussein], may God protect him, is the true
leader in the war against the infidels. The organization's leaders live in
Jordan... when they visited Iraq two months ago they demonstrated a willingness
to carry out operations against American interests at any time.
In the first, from January 1993, and coinciding with the start of the US
humanitarian intervention in Somalia, the Presidential Secretary informed
the council member of Saddam's decision to "form a group to
start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia."
When attacking Western interests, the competitive terror cartel
came into play, particularly in the late 1990s. Captured documents reveal that the
regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al
Qaeda-as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's longterm
vision. A directive (Extract 24) from the Director for International Intelligence
in the IIS to an Iraqi operative in Bahrain orders him to investigate a particular
terrorist group there, The Army of Muhammad.
Extract 24.
[July 2001]
We have learned of a group calling themselves The Army ofMuhammad... has
threatened Kuwaiti authorities and plans to attack American and Western interests
...We need detailed information about this group, their activities, their objectives,
and their most distinguished leaders. We need to know [to] whom
they belong to and with whom they are connected. Give this subject your utmost attention.
The agent reports (Extract 25) that The Army of Muhammad is
working with Osama bin Laden.
Extract 25.
[9 July 200 1]
Information available to us is that the group is under the wings of bin
Laden. They receive their directions from Yemen. Their objectives are the same as bin Laden...
A later note84 lists the group's objectives, among them:
• Jihad in the name of God.
• Striking the embassies and other Jewish and American interests anywhere
in the world.
• Attacking the American and British military bases in the Arab land.
• Striking American embassies and interests unless the Americans pull
out their forces from the Arab lands and discontinue their support for
Israel.
• Disrupting oil exports [to] the Americans from Arab countries and
threatening tankers carrying oil to them.
A later memorandum from the same collection to the Director
of the IIS reports that the Army of Muhammad is endeavoring to receive assistance
[from Iraq] to implement its objectives, and that the local IIS station has
been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established.
The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that "this organization is an offshoot
of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can
be a way of camouflaging the organization."
Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously,
operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some
ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.
