As Steve Hayes and I have previously discussed, the new IPP study documents the relationship between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad (“EIJ”). It is worth reproducing the language from the IPP study in this regard once again: “Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.” Indeed, this is a very important fact. Zawahiri has worked closely with Osama bin Laden since the mid-1980’s, when both terror chieftains were organizing and directing recruits for the jihad in Afghanistan. Zawahiri and other Egyptian terrorists, in particular Sheikh Omar abd al-Rahman (aka the “Blind Sheikh”), played instrumental roles in al Qaeda’s evolution. Most likely, al Qaeda would not have become nearly as effective without them. Almost all of the key roles inside al Qaeda were filled by EIJ members early on, and the EIJ remains at the core of al Qaeda to this day. It is no exaggeration to say that Zawahiri is as much a part of al Qaeda as Osama bin Laden himself. But there is more to the story of Saddam’s relationship with the EIJ. If you take a closer look at one of the documents the IPP study relies upon, you will find that Saddam agreed to work with not only Zawahiri’s EIJ, but also, more broadly, the so-called “Afghan Arabs”–the veterans of the Afghanistan jihad against the Soviets who made up almost the entire first generation of al Qaeda–in general. (Of course, the EIJ’s members were themselves “Arab Afghans.”) The key is the January 25, 1993 memo from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) to Saddam that I discussed in my first post in this series. Recall that just one week earlier, on January 18, Saddam had ordered his minions to use terrorists to “hunt” the Americans throughout the Muslim world, and especially in Somalia. One of the groups the IIS identified as capable of fulfilling this mission was Zawahiri’s EIJ. According to the January 25 memo, Iraqi Intelligence had recently met with a leading figure in Sudan’s ruling National Islamic Front party, Sheikh Ali ‘Uthman Taha. It was Taha who negotiated a renewal of the relationship between Saddam’s Iraq, on the one hand, and Zawahiri and the Blind Sheikh’s sister organizations on the other. Sudan was then playing host to the Arab Afghans.
Here is the relevant part from the U.S. Government’s translation of the January 25, 1993 memo (emphasis added):
Subsequent documents go on to relate the arrangements made for Sheikh Ali ‘Uthman Taha’s trip to Iraq, which is discussed in item C, as well as an envoy from the EIJ itself being sent to Baghdad. And item A recounts how Saddam’s Intelligence service had an agreement to provide the Egyptian groups with “whatever they need” to foment rebellion in Egypt. But read item B again closely. After mentioning that Taha had acted as a broker for a renewal of the relationship between Saddam’s regime and the leading Egyptian terrorist groups in item A, the IIS mentions that Iraq more broadly agreed “to make use” of who we would commonly refer to as the “Arab Afghans.” That is most certainly who is being discussed in item B. And in item C it is clear that Saddam’s goons wanted to evaluate all of these terrorists’ “capabilities” soon. So, Saddam agreed to not only continue working with the two leading Egyptian terrorist groups–who are core groups within al Qaeda–but also the Arab Afghans in general. And some people still think that Saddam could not work with Islamists.
