Message Board

Is the US acting as a sole superpower by snubbing UN? Post your views

London: Documents recovered from ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters show evidence of direct link between his regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, a media report said on April 27.

According to papers recovered by 'Daily Telegraph' from the bombed headquarters of Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat, an al-Qaida envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998 to establish a relationship between Iraq and the terror network based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia.

The meeting was extended by a week and arrangements were discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.

'The Telegraph' said it found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble in a room of the intelligence headquarters.

They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qaida's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996.

The meeting took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US Embassies in East Africa.

A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. Laden's name was attempted to be removed from the documents, but was clearly visible once the whitening fluid was removed.

The letter seeks permission to call the Khartoum station (Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan) to facilitate the travel arrangements for the envoy and that the agency "carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden".

PTI