Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin today (June 18, 2004) claimed that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was planning terror attacks on US territories and American interests world-wide and said that Moscow has been sharing intelligence information with Washington about these plans.

"Its true, after September 11, 2001 and till the beginning of the military operation in Iraq, several times the Russian intelligence got the information that the official bodies of the Saddam regime were preparing terror attacks on the US territory and outside against American interests," Putin, currently in Kazakh capital Astana, told reporters.

Earlier yesterday, Interfax agency quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying that Russian intelligence agents shared information with their American counterparts in 2002 that Iraqi secret services were organising terrorist attacks against US facilities.

When asked to comment on the Interfax report, Putin said, "This information was passed on to the American colleagues through channels of partnership," ITAR-TASS reported.

The unnamed agent quoted by Interfax said that Russia had received a report early in 2002 that Iraqi secret agents were planning attacks on US diplomatic and military facilities.

"This information was more than once passed on to our US partners in oral and written form in the fall of 2002," the Interfax source in the Russian intelligence community was quoted as saying.

The agent said while investigating the causes of the Iraq crisis, it is necessary to take into account all of the aspects, including the direct threat to the United States from the Saddam's regime.

The Russian secret agent's statement was made in response to a finding by the US federal panel investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks that there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between al-Qaeda and Hussein.

The commission held its final public hearing yesterday.

The agent said that Russia, too, possessed no evidence of a link between Hussein and al-Qaeda, but he suggested that the panel's findings failed to "draw a comprehensive picture," Interfax reported.