Iraq & al-Qaeda

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So far, suspicions of a Saddam-bin Laden synergy are just that. The same few data points are periodically recycled. Most of the suggestive clues come from unconfirmed charges repeated to journalists and U.S. officials by a few defectors in the hands of the opposition Iraqi National Congress and prisoners held by pro-U.S. Kurdish factions--all of whom have a vested interest in feeding anti-Saddam propaganda. CIA officials, while not ruling anything out, say meaningful ties between Saddam and bin Laden are tenuous at best. Members of Congress who have been well briefed have seen no smoking gun. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a Foreign Relations Committee member who has warned against a pre-emptive strike, insists, "Saddam is not in league with al-Qaeda. Of course he cheers and encourages them. But I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda."

So what makes the hard-liners say, Oh yes, there is? A Pentagon official agrees that dozens of al-Qaeda refugees have landed in Iraq, including "some new, mid-level people." But, says a senior intelligence official, "Iraq is not replacing Afghanistan as the sanctuary for al-Qaeda." Many of the newcomers are Kurdish jihadists returning to their native habitat or Afghan Arabs who have slipped into the Kurdish north, which is beyond the control of Baghdad, under the U.S.-enforced no-fly zone established after the Gulf War. Intelligence officials told Time that while Baghdad is aware of their presence, there's no clear evidence that Saddam has made substantive contact with them. "The al-Qaeda people are not official guests of the Iraqi government," says a senior spook. "There's no indication of that."

Anti-Saddam hard-liners have lately seized on the extremist Ansar al-Islam as the organizational nexus that ties al-Qaeda to Baghdad. The group has existed in various forms since the 1990s, when its leader, an Islamic cleric named Najmadin Fatah who goes by the nom de guerre Mullah Krekar, took inspiration from Afghan mujahedin to launch a rebellion against the two feuding secular factions that divvy up Iraqi Kurdistan. Krekar, who carries a Norwegian passport, is a veteran of the mujahedin known for his ruthlessness. "He is not normal," says a Kurdish intelligence official. "He enjoys killing people."

Last year, the Islamists morphed into their current incarnation as the "Supporters of Islam," which almost certainly includes members who trained in terrorism at al-Qaeda's Afghan camps. Bin Laden probably recruited men from among Ansar disciples. Today Ansar may well include some al-Qaeda fighters looking for a new nest. Kurdish officials say the group has swollen to around 700, but U.S. intelligence puts the number at a little over 100.

The telling allegation, made again last week by New York Times columnist William Safire, is that Saddam secretly runs Ansar. According to Safire's unsourced pronouncement, a Saddam intelligence operative and a senior bin Laden agent helped coordinate an assault by Ansar militants to assassinate the secular, pro-American Kurdish leadership last year. Both, he claimed, were captured when Kurdish forces put down the revolt. Safire also fingered Saddam's agents as the men behind Ansar's crude attempts to make poison weapons that drew Pentagon attention.