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Al Qaeda's Links to Iraq

(Newsweek) Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman - Two high-level al Qaeda detainees - Abu Zubaydah, bin Laden’s former operations chief, and his onetime deputy Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a fierce Libyan operative who was once the military commander of al Qaeda’s Khalden training camp in eastern Afghanistan - have separately described efforts by al Qaeda operatives to seek out Iraqi assistance in assembling chemical weapons. The case of Iraqi national Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, 37, also "connects with both Iraq and 9-11,” said one U.S. official. After September 11, a search of Shakir’s apartment in Doha, Qatar, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and to a 1994 Manila plot to blow up a civilian airliner over the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials found that Shakir had been present at a January 2000 al Qaeda “summit” in Malaysia attended by two of the 9-11 hijackers. Authorities believe the summit may have been a planning session for both the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole and 9-11.
2002-09-30 00:00:00
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