I just found this article on the internet which mentions a report done by the Defense Department that compiles seized Iraqi gov't documents and interviews of high ranking Ba'athist officials. The Article claims that information in the report show that since the end of the Gulf War Saddam sought to make alliances with various terrorist groups in order to attack U.S. interests in the region.
Among other things:
The former regime's stash of documents includes a list of some of the groups that were willing to commit these attacks on behalf of the Iraqi regime. The "Renewal and Jihad Organization" was one group willing to "carry out operations against American interests at any time." The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri's group, which merged with Osama bin Laden's terrorists to form al-Qaeda) is described in the report as having "agreed" on a plan for attacks against the Egyptian government. The Islamic Scholars Group in Pakistan is described by Iraqi officials as willing to "carry out any assignment we task them with." Another Pakistani organization, which the report refers to as the Pakistan Scholars Group, is listed as not being "tasked with commando operations during the (Gulf) war," possibly implying that the group was available to commit "operations" at Iraq's beckoning. (For more on Saddam Hussein's associations with Islamic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ray Robison's "Both in One Trench" is a must read.)
The report also reveals that in the late 1990s Saddam was willing to "support or co-opt" a group named "Army of Muhammad" that it knew to be loyal to Osama bin Laden. Iraq was aware that the group had plans to attack American military bases in Arab countries (a goal that Saddam's regime shared) and American embassies (another shared goal). Internal Iraqi documents note that the group was seeking Iraqi assistance, though they do not mention what Iraq's response was. Saddam was impressed with al-Qaeda attacks on American embassies and other targets, and his pattern of support for groups wishing to attack American interests suggests that refusing to grant the desired assistance to the Army of Muhammad would have been a deviation from normal behavior.
Another document lists an Islamic militant group in Afghanistan as dependent on Iraq for financing, and an Islamic group in Egypt as agreeing to make attacks in exchange for financing and training from Iraq. Saddam's regime also provided supervision and oversight, as well as 30,000 rifles and 10,000 pistols, to help get a Sudanese terrorist training camp off the ground at a time when anti-American Islamic terror groups were prevalent in the country. According to the report, Saddam's regime also maintained in-country training camps for all kinds of non-Iraqi groups, many of which were looking to destabilize America's allies in the Middle East.
Other documents show that a Kurdish Islamic group received "financial and moral support" from Saddam's regime and that the regime wanted to establish an organizational relationship with the group. This is probably the group referred to later in the report as conducting attacks against American and other U.N. humanitarian workers, as well as Kurdish officials and civilians, on behalf of the Iraqi regime.
A less contentious issue is the use of terrorism by arms of Saddam Hussein's intelligence and security branches. In 1993 Saddam ordered his men to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil, especially Somalia." This occurred within days of al-Qaeda's decision to do the same thing. In 1990 terrorists acting on behalf of the Iraqi regime attempted to bomb an American ambassador's home in Jakarta and an American Airlines office and the Japanese embassy in the Philippines.
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