Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti
He pointed to an abandoned village in the middle distance, a place called Kheli Hama. 'That is where the massacre took place," he
said. In late September, forty-two of his men were killed by Ansar al-Islam, and now Dekone and his forces seemed ready for
revenge. I asked him what he would do if he captured the men responsible for the killing.
'1 would take them to court," he said.
When I got to Sulaimaniya, I visited a prison run by the intelligence service of the Patriotic Union. The prison is attached to the
intelligence-service headquarters. It appears to be well kept and humane; the communal cells hold twenty or so men each, and they
have kerosene heat, and even satellite television. For two days, the intelligence agency permitted me to speak with any prisoner who
agreed to be interviewed. I was wary; the Kurds have an obvious interest in lining up on the American side in the war against terror.
But the officials did not, as far as I know, compel anyone to speak to me, and I did not get the sense that allegations made by
prisoners were shaped by their captors. The stories, which I later checked with experts on the region, seemed at least worth the
attention of America and other countries in the West.
The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam
Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in
Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by
Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons,
into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer
than previously thought.
When I asked the director of the twenty-four-hundred-man Patriotic Union intelligence service why he was allowing me to interview
his prisoners, he told me that he hoped I would carry this information to American intelligence officials. ''The F.B.I. and the C.I.A.
haven't come out yet," he told me. His deputy added, "Americans are going to Somalia, the Philippines, I don't know where else, to
look for terrorists. But this is the field, here." Anya Guilsher, a spokeswoman for the C.I.A., told me last week that as a matter of
policy the agency would not comment on the activities of its officers. James Woolsey, a former C.I.A. director and an advocate of
overthrowing the Iraqi regime, said, "It would be a real shame if the c.1.A.'s substantial institutional hostility to Iraqi democratic
resistance groups was keeping it from learning about Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda in northern Iraq."
The possibility that Saddam could supply weapons of mass destruction to anti-American terror groups is a powerful argument among
advocates of "regime change," as the removal of Saddam is known in Washington. These critics of Saddam argue that his chemical and
biological capabilities, his record of support for terrorist organizations, and the cruelty of his regime make him a threat that reaches
far beyond the citizens of Iraq.
"He's the home address for anyone wanting to make or use chemical or biological weapons," Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi dissident, said.
Makiya is the author of "Republic of Fear," a study of Saddam's regime. "He's going to be the person to worry about. He's got the
labs and the know-how. He's hellbent on trying to find a way into the fight, without announcing it."
On the surface, a marriage of Saddam's secular Baath Party regime with the fundamentalist Al Qaeda seems unlikely. His relationship
with secular Palestinian groups is well known; both Abu Nidal and Abul Abbas, two prominent Palestinian terrorists, are currently
believed to be in Baghdad. But about ten years ago Saddam underwent something of a battlefield conversion to a fundamentalist
brand of Islam.
"It was gradual, starting the moment he decided on the invasion of Kuwait," in June of 1990, according to Amatzia Baram, an Iraq
expert at the University of Haifa. "His calculation was that he needed people in Iraq and the Arab world-as well as God-to be on
his side when he invaded. After he invaded, the Islamic rhetorical style became overwhelming"-so overwhelming, Baram continued,
that a radical group in Jordan began calling Saddam "the New Caliph Marching from the East." This conversion, cynical though it may
be, has opened doors to Saddam in the fundamentalist world. He is now a prime supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and of
Hamas, paying families of suicide bombers ten thousand dollars in exchange for their sons' martyrdom. This is part of Saddam's
attempt to harness the power of Islamic extremism and direct it against his enemies.
Kurdish culture, on the other hand, has traditionally been immune to religious extremism. According to Kurdish officials, Ansar
al-Islam grew out of an idea spread by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former chief of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and now Osama bin Laden's
deputy in Al Qaeda. "There are two schools of thought" in Al Qaeda, Karim Sinjari, the Interior Minister of Kurdistan's Democratic
Party-controlled region, told me. "Osama bin Laden believes that the infidels should be beaten in the head, meaning the United States.
Zawahiri's philosophy is that you should fight the infidel even in the smallest village, that you should try to form Islamic armies
everywhere. The Kurdish fundamentalists were influenced by Zawahiri."
~urds wer~ ~ong those ~~o travelled to Afghanistan from allover the Muslim world, first to fight the Soviets, in the early
mneteen-elghties, then to Jam Al Qaeda. The members of the groups that eventually became Ansar al-Islam spent a great deal of time
in Afghaz:ùstan, according to Kurdish intelligence officials. One Kurd who went to Afghanistan was Mala Krekar, an early leader of
the IslamlSt movement in Kurdistan; according to Sinjari, he now holds the title of "emir" of Ansar al-Islam.
In 1998, the ~t for~~ of IsI~ist terrorists c:rossed the Iranian border into Kurdistan, and immediately tried to seize the town of Haj
Om.ran. Kurdish offiCials sald that the terrorlSts were helped by Iran, which also has an interest in undermining a secular Muslim
government. ''The terrorists blocked the road, they killed Kurdish Democratic Party cadres, they threatened the villagers" Sinjari
said. 'We fought them and they fled."
'
The terrorist groups splintered repeatedly. According to a report in the Arabic newspaper AI-Sharq al-Awsat , which is published in
London, Ansar al-Islam came into being, on September 1st of last year, with the merger of two factions: Al Tawhid, which helped to
arrange the assassination of Kurdistan's most prominent Christian politician, and whose operatives initiated an acid-throwing
campaign against unveiled women; and a faction called the Second Soran Unit, which had been affiliated with one of the Kurdish
Islamic parties. In a statement issued to mark the merger, the group, which originally called itself Jund al-Islam, or Soldiers of Islam,
declared its in~ention to "undert~ke jihad in this region" in order to carr.' out "God's will." According to Kurdish officials, the group
had between five hundred and SIX hundred members, including Arab Afghans and at least thirty Iraqi Kurds who were trained in
Afghanistan.
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