Saddam Hussein's regime was linked to an African Islamist terrorist group, according to intelligence papers seen by The Telegraph. The documents provide the first hard evidence of ties between Iraq and religious terrorism. Secret dossiers detailing the group's discussions with the Iraqi Intelligence Service were found in the spies' Baghdad headquarters, among the detritus of shredding. The papers show how Iraq's charge d'affaires in Nairobi, Fallah Hassan Al Rubdie, was in discussion with the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan guerrilla group with ties to other anti-western Islamist organisations.
| New one on me. Never heard of them, though I'm not an expert on Subsaharan Africa... |
While the United States has long argued that Saddam's regime was aiding Islamist groups, it has struggled until now to provide compelling evidence. In a letter to the head of the Iraqi spy agency, a senior ADF operative outlined his group's efforts to set up an "international mujahideen team". Its mission, he said, "will be to smuggle arms on a global scale to holy warriors fighting against US, British and Israeli influences in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Far East". The letter, dated April 2001, was signed: "Your Brother, Bekkah Abdul Nassir, Chief of Diplomacy ADF Forces". Nassir offered to "vet, recruit and send youth to train for the jihad" at a centre in Baghdad, which he described as a "headquarters for international holy warrior network". It was not clear whether the centre was established. "We should not allow the enemy to focus on Afghanistan and Iraq, but we should attack their international criminal forces inside every base," the letters said.
| Sounds like a wannabe bin Laden, trying to line up some financing and training and guns and ammo and bombs and uniforms and groceries and transportation and lodging. He'll provide everything else... |
The ADF emerged in 1996, when it launched a rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni's government.
| I think he was the one who believed in flying saucers... |
In December 2001 the movement was placed on the US list of terrorist organisations. Throughout its campaign the ADF has been provided with weapons and funding by the Islamist government in Sudan, one of more than half a dozen states Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism.
| Even though Sudan is allowing the Ugandan army to operate within its borders to track down the Lord's Resistance Army, which appears to be more of a threat. Must be a religious thing. |
The key figure behind the ADF is widely acknowledged to be a fundamentalist Islamic cleric, Sheikh Jamil Makulu. According to the Ugandan government and western intelligence sources, Sheikh Makulu became friendly with Osama bin Laden in the early to mid-Nineties, when the al-Qa'eda chief was living in Khartoum. The IIS's headquarters were only loosely guarded by US special forces yesterday. The Telegraph entered the building through one of the many holes left by devastating bombing.
This is typical of what we'll see emerging from Iraq over the next year or so - a compendium of information linking Iraq to every bunch of nasties who ever held out their hand. Saddam truly believed he could buy his way into the history books, and left no opportunity unheeded. This is just one more reason to be thankful the SOB's either dead or disconnected from the Iraqi people. |