Mideast Roundup

February 14, 2003

Last-minute flash before closing this issue:

Adib Shaaban, the right hand of Saddam Hussein's powerful son Uday, has defected.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports exclusively that this key member of Saddam Hussein's administration, who was charged with his son's most sensitive missions, traveled to Jedda at the beginning of this week, saying he needed to clinch some gold transactions ahead of the war.

From Jeddah, he flew to Beirut and· disappeared.

Our intelligence sources report that Shaaban never really went to Beirut. He made his way under cover to Damascus three days ago and was picked up by an unmarked plane for an unknown destination.

As Uday's closest aide, he also managed a chain of official publications, including the authoritative Babel, and was in on the Saddam regime's deepest secrets.

Uday commands the secret army known as Saddam's Fedayeen, the leading force charged with the defense of the Iron Triangle (see <#3-1>article below) and the custody of the weapons of mass destruction that were not smuggled out to Lebanon.

Uday is also the chief of the ruling Baath Party's covert service.

Shaaban must therefore be a veritable treasury of Saddam Hussein's secrets. In American hands, Uday's chef de bureau would be even more valuable than the proverbial smoking gun.

Al Qaeda

A Rapid-fire Riposte

A bare two days after the latest audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden was aired, al Qaeda has spoken again, refusing to leave the stage to Washington's comments and the guesswork surrounding the high terror alert declared United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Normally, months go by between al Qaeda statements. Not this time, according to a fresh release that reached DEBKAfile's counter-terrorism and intelligence sources Thursday, February 13.

The new Al Qaeda message is signed by Abu al Baraa Al-Qarshy, one of bin Laden's most trusted lieutenants, who explicitly promises a painful terrorist attack is on the way.

Al-Qarshy says:

"Praise Allah, our sheikh's words have reached the general leadership of the Muslims and the Mujahideen throughout the world."

In other words: Al-Qaeda instructions have reached all of its cells across the globe, and were understood only by those belonging to the Mujahideen.

"Wait, our friends, salvation is at hand and the painful blow is on its way. It will be a sweeping attack recognizable, with God's help, to those who believe with all their hearts in jihad and the Mujahideen."

The text also hints that at least one of the planned attacks will be against Americans in Saudi Arabia or the Arabian Peninsula.

In answer to the responses made by the White House and US officials to the bin Laden tape, as conveyed on Tuesday, February 11:

"They have lied about our sheikh and the holy warriors -- may God's curse be upon them. In the name of merciful Allah, a happy holiday, which to me is a double cause for celebration.

First, we have the feast of the sacrifice, and we ask Allah to make us victorious over our enemies in the coming year.

The special cause for celebration was hearing the beautiful voice of sheikh Osama bin Laden. Its beauty and sublimity almost made me forget the contents of the historic speech. Those unfamiliar with our sheikh, Osama bin Laden, will find it hard to decipher his sermon."

The message then goes on to refer to statements by CIA Director George Tenet referring to possible attacks in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula.

"I wish to clarify something unrelated to the message but connected with our enemies, the Crusaders in the Black House (Ed. the Americans in the White House) and the Munafiqim. (Ed. Muslims who pretended to support the Prophet Mohammed but in reality opposed him).

"More than one Crusader in the Black House hinted that our sheikh will use weapons of mass destruction in the land of two temples. (Ed. a reference to Saudi Arabia and its two holy cities, Mecca and Medina).

"I swear to God that for al Qaeda's cells operating in the land of two temples, this concept is as distant as east is to west. Special care will be taken not to harm Muslims - anyone who does will suffer severe punishment to the point of execution.

"Moreover, the land of the two temples is the only place where an individual is forbidden to act without the consent of the supreme leadership. I swear to ensure no mistakes are made, so that each blow against the Crusaders in this holy land will be painful and not spill a drop of Muslim blood.

"The government, despite its paucity of information about al Qaeda cells, knows that al Qaeda can reach any place at any time, regardless of security measures taken in the land of the two temples. But the government is not disseminating this information. Precautions were taken in that part of the world (Saudi Arabia) because it is the land of the two temples and the birthplace and center of Islam.

"The majority of al-Qaeda's active leadership in the land of two temples - the Mujahideen - need not expand its religious consciousness or make further preparations because it has already been trained to be prepared.

"Praise Allah, the message of the sheikh has reached the general leadership of the Muslims and Mujahideen throughout the world, and those orders will be understood only by those who are part of the Mujahideen.

"And wait, salvation is near and the painful blow is on the way. It will be sweeping, and with God's help and signs recognized by those who believe in their hearts in jihad and the Mujahideen. Moreover it will be sweeping, with the help of God and the signs that true believers in jihad and the Mujahideen will recognize. And God will proclaim paradise and our sheikh will take the Islamic army to his bosom and its flag shall fly everywhere in the world. We are waiting.

Your brother,

Abu Al-Baraa Al-Qarshy


Alert for Terror

Jumping at the Unknown

The scary action features bursting over American, British and Israeli cityscapes this week may be here to stay for a while. Following pressing terror alerts, American F-15 and F-16 jets took to the skies of Washington and New York, Israeli warplanes circled around the clock over Tel Aviv and the country's slender coastal plain, RAF Tornadoes hovered over London, Stinger missile batteries went up to protect US centers of government in Washington DC and tanks greeted shocked travelers at London's vast Heathrow airport.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and military experts predict that all these symptoms of appalling, unknowable perils will be standard until the campaign against Iraq is over and done and Saddam gone for good. Official spokesmen defined the threat simplistically as emanating from Osama bin Laden's terrorists, 17 months after suicide attackers struck New York and Washington. That is only part of the truth. It does not explain why the once safe civilian populations of the Western homelands are edging towards becoming the front line, for the first time in the past century, of an armed conflict.

The reason lies in Baghdad - but not from classical means of warfare. Saddam Hussein's missiles are deployed 6009 miles from New York, 2,549 miles from London, and his surface missiles only 559 miles from Tel Aviv. However, those missiles, even as carriers of chemical and biological warheads, were not the immediate cue for the high alert declared by most of the free world this week - or even North Korea's rockets, which CIA Director George Tenet revealed could reach America's West Coast. The greatest peril was perceived as coming from human missiles: suicide-killers. They pose a greater hazard than even military projectiles, because they are the willing carriers of radiological weapons as well as chemical and biological poisons and prepared to die in their use.

Al Qaeda has no monopoly over these human bombs.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pointed Wednesday to the "unholy partnership" between Al Qaeda and Iraq, echoing the argument made by Secretary of State Colin Powell. He went on to speak of a "nightmare" link between the two. He did not spell out the full extent of this nightmare, the multiple terrorist brigades marshaled by Saddam Hussein, of which the al Qaeda is but one element, for an attempt to terrorize America and its allies.

The nightmare brigade

One of the decisive prompters of the current terror alert was Saddam's enlistment of a lesser known but extremely violent surrogate force, this one new to the international terror scene: the highly-trained 15,000-strong special units of the armed Iranian opposition, the Mujahideen al-Khalq, or MKO. This name is unfamiliar in the West, which makes it hard for US President George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair to lay the threat on the line for public consumption.

In a word, the Mujahideen al-Khalq, largely recruited from expatriate Iranian communities in the West, has been fighting Iran's Khomeinist regime since the early 1980s, often staging spectacularly bloody attacks against government and military targets. In the last 15 years, it has fought from bases in Iraq, taken over, funded and trained by Iraqi military intelligence for bold commando actions behind Iranian lines and kamikaze operations. Structured as a military force, with organized camps, military units and commanders, its chief is a woman, Maryam Rajavi, the wife of MKO founder Massoud Rajavi. In the 1990s, she was banned from Britain and Germany and evicted from France because of the "large terrorist faction" in their movement.

Faced with an American invasion, Saddam has called the Mujahideen al-Khalq into his service - both in Iraq (See separate <#3-2>article in this issue) and as a depth charge for the international terror stage. The Iranian group was no more than a faint blip on the recent screens of Western intelligence, whose combined resources are invested largely in pre-empting terror attacks by al Qaeda. Its suicide operatives are therefore free to strike from deep shadows in America, Europe and the Middle East. (As DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported in its last issue No. 96)

Another quasi-military terror group that Saddam has pressed into service is the super-secret 999 Special Units.

(DEBKA-Net-Weekly Issue 83 published a rundown of this lethal force on November 1, 2002, since when the Iraqis have introduced some adaptations).

In 1996, the "American Battalion" was added to the six already in operation. It was specifically designed for attacks on strategic installations inside the United States and Canada.

All 999 Unit members are trained in the use of weapons of mass destruction and suicide tactics, taught how to hijack aircraft, strike at public transport and assassinate VIPs.

Each of the battalions numbers 300 commandos. The Arabian Battalion is trained for the sabotage of oil fields and installations in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states; the Palestinian Battalion, for terrorist operations in Israel; the Persian Battalion, for sabotage and murder in Iran, the Turkish Battalion for strikes against Turkish and American targets in southern and central Turkey; the Naval Commando Battalion is given similar training to that of the American Navy SEALS and designed for action in America and Great Britain.

All members of the 999 Units are given cover identities and are fluent in the language and dialects of their target countries.

Is Iraq's WMD cache in Lebanon available to Al Qaeda?

Three other key elements of Saddam's terrorist army are al Qaeda, the fanatical Algerian Islamic Group - the GIA, and the Palestinians, with whose leader Yasser Arafat, Iraqi military intelligence has a standing collaboration deal.

In his presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell pointed to senior al Qaeda commander Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi as the network's contact man with Iraqi military intelligence. Some voices in the West, especially in Germany, immediately questioned this assertion.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and counter-terror sources have identified Zarqawi as the al Qaeda officer in charge of moving terror operatives around the world and, as the network's armourer, procuring their weapons - conventional and unconventional. He is also senior regional operations officer for Europe and the Middle East.

No one knows exactly where al Qaeda hides its weapons stores. Some speculate they are cached in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But, in the last two weeks, the military sources of DEBKA-Net-Weekly and DEBKAfile discovered that Iraq staged a major removal of its forbidden weapons systems, sending them overland by truck to Lebanon via Syria. Believed to be secreted in the Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, these weapons are guarded by an hodgepodge of custodians, Syrian military intelligence units, Hizballah security operatives and the armed Lebanese militias who work for Lebanon's drug barons.

Zarqawi is a regular visit to Damascus, whence he usually travels onward to destinations in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, 150 al Qaeda terrorists of the "Ansar Brigade" - members of the north Iraqi radical Kurdish Ansar al Islam, which is hand in glove with Iraqi military intelligence as well as al Qaeda - are known to be based in the south Lebanese port town of Sidon.

With both the manpower and the WMD stores available in Lebanon - and no more than 250 km apart - it is hard to believe that Zarqawi has not been given access to the hidden Iraqi stocks.

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly has reported in the past, al Qaeda is structured according to similar regional battalion lines as the Iraqi 999 Special Units, calling them "mantiqas" - meaning regions, instead of battalions. Osama bin Laden's organization has set up "mantiqas" for North America, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Arabian Peninsula and Afghanistan-Pakistan. The "mantiqas" are subdivided into districts - five for Southeast Asia, but only one for the whole of Australia. The Arabian "mantiqa" covers the "Ansar Brigade" in Lebanon.

Zirqawi, in addition to his other tasks, acts as liaison officer between al Qaeda's five "mantiqas" and Iraq's 999 battalions.

This labyrinthine edifice brings together the organs of Iraqi and al Qaeda terror and places them within easy reach of Iraq's hidden weapons of mass destruction - all under the auspices of Syrian President Bashar Assad, without whose willing aid they could not interlock.

No intelligence service on earth can produce incontrovertible proof that members of Iraq's 999 Special Units have gone into Lebanon to pick up illegal weapons systems, or that Zarqawi's men have accessed Saddam's Lebanese cache and distributed weaponized chemical or biological agents to operational cells in other parts of the world. But the circumstantial data is strong and demands fast action; the fact that these weapons and their potential for the next stage of world history are under the protection of the paramilitary minders of drug gangs must raise a shudder.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and military sources reveal here that, while the public is transfixed by the alarming anti-terror measures taken in the main cities of the United States, Britain and Israel, the undercover and special forces of all three countries are desperately hunting for Saddam's forbidden weapons cache in Lebanon, while attempting to monitor attempts to smuggle them out to overseas terrorist cells.

On Friday, February 14, Dr. Hans Blix and Muhamed ElBaradai are due to submit their final report to the UN Security Council, winding up their arms inspection mission in Iraq. That report cannot be expected to reveal the presence of Iraq's smuggled unconventional weapons store in Lebanon or Baghdad's close ties with al Qaeda through Zarqawi.

The United States and Britain will declare Iraq in material breach of Security Council Resolution 1441. France or Russia will veto any motion authorizing military action against Iraq and demand a vote to extend the UN arms inspection mission. The United States will veto the European motion in its turn and the United Nations Security Council will break up without resolving anything, a deadlock that can only act as a road sign to its irrelevance.

Unless President Bush backs down at the last minute, he may be expected to issue the order for the American army to advance on Iraq. The war could therefore be a matter of days away. Only when the offensive begins, will it be possible to know whether the CIA, the Mossad and MI6 were able to lay hands on Saddam's terror squads, the Mujahideen al-Khalq commandos, the 999 Special Units, al Qaeda's terrorists and the spider at the heart of the web, Zarqawi, so as keep the cities of America, Britain and Israel safe from the most savage excesses of terror.


Iraq's Plan of Campaign

1. Saddam Builds "Iron Triangle" to Crush American Advance on Baghdad

Saddam Hussein still believes he can smash the coming US assault on Iraq and send the mighty American army running home with its tail between its legs.

Preparing his last line of defense, the Iraqi leader has built an "Iron Triangle" outside his capital. Since Monday February 10, Saddam's has been gathering in his military resources -- tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, planes, special forces and weapons of mass destruction" - from positions across Iraq.

From the northern tip of the triangle, his hometown stronghold of Tikrit, the zone's western leg stretches south to Al Ramadi. >From there, it reaches Baghdad and takes in the giant Habaniya airfield and Iraq's largest concentration of bases at Faluja. From the Iraqi capital, the base of the triangle cuts across to Al Azamiyh, only 12 miles (19 miles) east of Baghdad.

Saddam and his generals left the eastern leg of the triangle exposed, hoping the Iranians will not take advantage of the US assault and attack Iraq (for motives outlined in a separate <#4>article in this issue).

Therefore, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military experts, the bulk of Saddam's military assets is massed in an area of no more than about 80 square miles (207 square km), deliberately keeping only about 0.05 percent of Iraq's 168,000 square miles (435,120 square km) of territory under his control.

Saddam has moved into this wedge of land his government, the ruling Baath Party apparatus and the military units that he and his generals believe capable of saving the Iraqi regime from annihilation.

These forces include units of the Special Guard - widely misnamed the Republican Guard - suicide troops, special combat units belonging to various branches of Iraqi military intelligence and segments of Iraqi divisions, whose officers and men Saddam and his sons believe to be completely loyal.

Most of Iraq's short- and medium-range surface-to-surface missiles and their launchers, warplanes, helicopters, anti-aircraft systems and aircraft, which are capable of delivering chemical, biological and radiological weapons, are also located in the triangle.

The aircraft have been concentrated primarily in military bases located between Al Ramadi and Baghdad, such as Habaniya, Faluja, Samarra and al-Halis.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources report an intelligence estimate that between 160,000 and 180,000 Iraqi troops have been drawn into the triangle, a figure that could go up to 220,000 - or half the Iraqi military - once the redeployment is completed.

The strategy is simple: Iraqi generals, who answer to the triangle's supreme commanders, Saddam's two sons Uday and Qusay, believe the massive concentration of might will be able to throw back the first wave of US troops advancing from the north, south and west and prevent it from reaching the heart of Baghdad.

Saddam is operating on the premise, outlined by DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military analysts, that if he can repulse this first wave and inflict heavy casualties on the American invaders, the US army will withdraw from Iraq.

The Iraqi dictator was therefore full of bravado when he received his top generals and government officials come to greet him on the Muslim Eid al-Adha Feast of the Sacrifice on Tuesday, February 11.

"I cannot imagine us better placed than we are now," Saddam crowed. "In fact, I could not wish for Iraq to be in a better situation or for higher national morale as we get set to confront the cruel enemy," he said.

2. Mujahideen al-Khalq's Second Mission:
To Blow up Iraq's Oil Fields

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported earlier, Saddam Hussein has big plans for the Mujahideen a-Khalq, the armed Iranian opposition group, 15,000 of whose fighters are based in Iraq. The MKO is designated by Saddam for a dual purpose: to spread terror and mayhem inside America and to strike behind American lines in Iraq.

Now the Iranian militants have been assigned their most important task, to blow up and set fire to Iraq's oil fields the moment the US attack is launched. Last week, a Mujahideen battalion was deployed at the oil fields around the northern city of Kirkuk. Squads of six to 10 men were given sectors and armed with enough explosives and detonators to set them ablaze.

On Tuesday, February 2, a second Mujahideen battalion was dispatched to the oil fields around Mosul. A third battalion is on its way to Iraq's western oil fields. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, a fourth Mujahideen battalion should be heading for the southern oil fields in the Basra and Khozistan regions by the end of the week.

The Iranian battalion commanders carry sealed orders, to be opened when the US offensive gets under way or if contact is lost with Baghdad headquarters. In those eventualities, the oil fields are to be sabotaged without delay.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military and intelligence sources note that as the United States, Turkey and Kurdish leaders continue to dicker over the number of US and Turkish forces allowed in the oil fields and cities of northern Iran - and who will control them - Saddam has made his move.

His plan to torch the oil fields spells cataclysmic ecological disaster for the Gulf and Middle East, giving American war planners pause. If the oil fields go up in flames, parts of the American invasion force will need to be diverted to douse the fires before they rage out of control. Blazes at Khozistan's oil fields, for instance, could swiftly spread to Iranian oil fields next door.

Saddam has kept chemical and biological weapons in his Iron Triangle and given his missile battery and air force commanders secret orders to be prepared to use them.

Each Iraqi unit in the triangular defense zone has been given a combat sector with carte blanche to use any means - without exception - to ensure the safety of its men and keep them operational. Sector commanders will activate their WMD upon a signal from Baghdad or when they judge their men are in jeopardy.

If Saddam's plan of campaign goes into effect, therefore, Iraqi oil fields will be enveloped by flames, possibly together with fields that catch fire in Iran and the oil resources that his terrorists blow up in Saudi Arabia or the emirates. Most of the country will also be enshrouded in radioactive, chemical or biological cloud.

Wind or atmospheric conditions could blow some of the toxins back toward Iraqi forces crammed into the Iron Triangle. But DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that Saddam and his generals believe those units have sufficient protective gear to weather contamination. A network of bunkers and tunnels equipped with purification systems is also in place.

But the civilian population -- four million Kurds in northern Iraq and nine million Shiites in the south - may not be as lucky; they have no not received any protective gear.

Saddam's doomsday will encompass historic treasures

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, Saddam's plan of campaign entails both the eradication of Iraq's oil resources and its unique archeological and cultural treasures.

Monday and Tuesday, February 9 and 10, explosives were planted at Ur of the Chaldees, the traditional birthplace of Abraham, northwest of Basra in southern Iraq.

Two booby-trapped MiG-21 warplanes were parked at makeshift landing strips near the archeological site. US intelligence officials in Kuwait believe they are converted pilot-less, remote-controlled aircraft, equipped to carry biological or chemical substances and release them against US forces in Kuwait even before they enter southern Iraq's oil regions.

Iraq has also mined and booby-trapped the ruins of ancient Babylon.

The site, on the banks of the Tigris River, is about 55 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad and near the town of al-Hilala, in the southern outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Karbalah. The strong implication here is that Saddam plans to use non-conventional weapons against Iraq's Shiites, just as he did against the Kurds in Halajba in 1988.

What the Iraqi ruler is saying to US President George W. Bush by these actions is: If you make me go, I will take the oil fields and cradle of civilization with me.


Iran

Top Dollar for Minimal Aid to Iraq

Saddam Hussein put together a bagful of propositions he believed to be irresistible and sent his foreign minister Naji Sabri over to Tehran this week to present them.

They were attractive enough, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Iranian sources, to gain the Iraqi visitor long interviews with Iranian president Mohammed Khatami, foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi, chief of staff Hassan Firouz Abadi, Revolutionary Guards commander Yahya Rahim Safavi and his deputy, Mohammed Baqer Zolghadr. Sabri's request was also granted to meet directors of the propaganda department at Iranian military intelligence. He asked about organizing a joint campaign to stir up Iraq's Shiites against US forces.

Asking his hosts to put the bitterness of the Iraq-Iran war behind them, the Iraqi minister called for a historic reconciliation between the two neighbors and promised to dismantle the armed Iranian opposition Mujahideen a-Khalq, the biggest and most powerful Iranian opposition group based in Iraq. His price: Iran must call off its secret negotiations with Washington on military and political collaboration for the war against Baghdad and the makeup of the post-Saddam administration.

The Iranians smiled politely, secure in the knowledge that Saddam had already scripted out a combat role against the American invaders for the 15,000 Mujahideen fighters in his country. Sabri went on to offer to meet all Iran's longstanding territorial claims for sovereignty over some of the northern Persian Gulf islands, the Faw Peninsula and most of the Shaat al-Arab coastland. Iraq would only retain a narrow strip on the western bank.

Iraq too was suddenly prepared to pay Iran many millions of dollars in war damages for the eight-year war between the two countries in the eighties. Payment would be spread over 10 years.

Iranian officials asked the Iraqi minister to elaborate on what was meant by calling off negotiations with the Americans. He explained that Saddam expected Iran to fight alongside Iraq when the Americans invaded, because, he argued: "When the Americans have conquered us, it will be your turn."

Unconvinced by Saddam's largesse and Sabri's arguments, the Iranians replied with a flat negative. They admitted that had Iraq come forward earlier, they might have been interested. Now, it was too late; the American offensive was imminent.

The Iraqi minister was not put off. He moved on to a request. Should the US campaign succeed, would Tehran agree to provide a haven for top Iraqi leaders?

The Iranians replied that their country would be off-limits to all Iraqi politicians and senior military officers. But some junior officers and government officials might be admitted with their families. Tehran estimates that a quarter of a million Iraqis will flee across the border to Iran when war erupts.

Finally, Sabri also asked Iran to send food, fuel and medicines to the Baghdad area during the war, using the thousands of Iranian tankers and trucks that smuggled Iraqi oil to the emirates and the Islamic Republic. His request was meant to guarantee essential supplies for the troops massed in the Iron Triangle defense zone to be able to stand up to American attack.

This was the only Iraqi request to which Iran acceded. Even then, the Iranians set a price.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that Iraqi officials will have to be posted at the border crossings, with wads of hard currency to pay in dollars or pounds sterling for every truck allowed through with supplies for Iraq.


HOT POINTS
(that you may have missed in DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock)
A Digest of the Week's Exclusives

8 February: The disclosure that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon opens formal ceasefire talks with the Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Abu Ala next Monday, February 10, appears inconsequential and beside the point at a time when one war or more looms over the Middle East, together with other potential horrors.

Saturday morning, February 8, the Los Angeles Times reported that one factor driving the administration to raise the terror alert to orange, its second highest level, was the fear that al Qaeda has the ability to construct a radioactive, "dirty", bomb along with chemical weapons, and is preparing to launch it. The information came from counter-terrorist officials in Washington and bears out the discovery reported in DEBKAfile as of eighteen months ago.

DEBKAfile's intelligence and military sources stress once again that, if al Qaeda has this device, so too must Iraq. Wednesday, February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed in his graphic demonstration to the UN Security Council that al Qaeda had established a "poison and explosives" training camp 150 km northeast of Baghdad where several hundred al Qaeda operatives were taught by Iraqi intelligence instructors.

Powell did not name the facility. However, our military and counter-terror sources have obtained exclusive information naming the site as a secret Iraqi military installation in the town of Tajdari. The Iraqi Salum air base is situated 17km to the north of this secret base, handy for the clandestine use of Iraqi military intelligence and al Qaeda agents moving in an out of Iraq. Sharon's meetings last year with Abu Mazen - which DEBKAfile reported on December 27 - have been resurrected as a "fresh ceasefire initiative" to distract Israelis left frightened and at sea by the vague and conflicting statements issuing from government and military officials. Nothing is spelled out. They are not being told that they could be threatened by -

1.
Saddam Hussein's aircraft and missiles.

2.
Al Qaeda mega-terror, nuclear, chemical or biological.

3.
A Palestinian mega-strike alone or in conjunction with Iraqi military intelligence agents.

Arafat meanwhile is doing his utmost to undermine Sharon's Palestinian initiative. His other main pursuit at his Ramallah headquarters is the plotting of at least one mega-strike in an Israeli city, for execution either by his own Fatah and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, or else by al Qaeda operatives or Iraqi military intelligence hirelings, both of whom are present in Palestinian regions.

9 February: Saturday night, February 8, in the Iraqi-Kurdish city of Suleimaniyeh, al Qaeda and Iraqi military intelligence fired their first shot of the US-Iraq war - by assassination. They used their shared surrogate, the extremist Kurdish Ansar al-Islam of northeast Iraq, to eliminate the top command of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan's fighting militia.

The price was heavy, a grave setback for US war plans.

DEBKAfile's military analysts compare the murders to the assassination of the Afghan Northern Alliance commander Shah Massoud two days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Then, the killers posed as journalists; this time, they pretended to be defectors.

Ansar al Islam, which has been fighting the PUK for two years and whose members trained in Afghanistan, used double agents to convince the Kurdish commanders of this strategic northeastern corner of Iraq that top Ansar commanders were willing to defect. The defectors, it was promised, would bring fresh evidence of the collaboration between Iraqi military intelligence and al Qaeda.

The offer came just after secretary of state Colin Powell spoke of this collaboration at his Security Council presentation of America's case against Iraq on February 5. According to DEBKAfile's military sources, the Ansar offer was relayed to officers of the US special forces and CIA working alongside the PUK militia. According to some local sources, the Ansar intermediaries also offered to produce captive Iraqi military agents or al Qaeda operatives as hostages.

Suleimaniyah, the hub town of eastern Kurdistan, is also the headquarters of the PUK high command in the region. It is ruled by the PUK leader Jalal Talabani, who has been short-listed in Washington for the post of Iraqi prime minister after Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Suleimaniyeh also commands the highway from eastern Kurdistan to the important oil town of Kirkuk. The intermediaries' choice of this city for the Ansar defection was intended to inspire trust. Any defectors guilty of treachery would be at the mercy of the PUK.

Believing they were safe, therefore, the top PUK commanders turned up to await the defectors. Instead of defecting, the Ansar arrivals pulled from their robes Kalashnikov assault guns and grenades. They killed Gen. Shawkat Haji Mushir, PUK leadership member, Hekmat Osman, security chief of the Sirwan district and Sardar Qafoor, military commander of the same district, as well as Sheik Kaffar Mustafa and three civilians. Mohamad Tawfiq, security chief of Halabja was seriously injured.

The Ansar killers used the noise and confusion to make good their escape.

According to our sources, Ansar al-Islam is rife both with Zarqawi's men and also Iraqi military intelligence officers, under the command Colonel Abu Wale. These officers have been training al Qaeda operatives in the use of forbidden weapons at a secret base in Tajdori, 150 km northeast of Baghdad. Before he was murdered, PUK commander, Gen. Mushir received heavy cannons for his militia, supplied by the Turkish army at the request of the Americans, for the purpose of mounting action to capture the Ansar enclave. This operation has meanwhile been called off.

10 February: The world's key international bodies - the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union - are splitting fatally over the Iraq arms crisis. A NATO emergency session was deadlocked Monday, February 10, when three leading European nations, France, Germany and Belgium, encouraged by Russia - a non-member - blocked an American request to extend boosted protection to Turkey in a war contingency, chiefly AWACS surveillance planes, Patriot missiles and anti-chemical and anti-biological warfare teams.

France, Germany, Russia and Belgium argued that approval of Washington's request would send out two wrong signals:

1.
That they approve of American military action against Iraq and are prepared to join in - which is untrue. The Russian and French presidents stated jointly in Paris Monday that Iraq must be disarmed by peaceful means, that the UN inspectors must be allowed continue their mission and that war was only a last resort.

2.
By sending Turkey the two teams, they would affirm that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction for which Turkey needs protection. This would cut the ground from under the UN inspection mission and any further diplomacy, clearing the way for military action without further ado.

US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded to the triple veto by declaring that NATO would not delay the war: "We will act without them," he said. The NATO showdown Monday may therefore be seen as a dress rehearsal for the first-night performance at UN Center, New York, next Monday. The cohesiveness of NATO and the EU hinges on the UN Security Council's ability to break the impasse and move forward on the Iraqi crisis. International consensus is evaporating as fast as the American troop buildup advances. The United States and the anti-war camp are clearly determined to bring the standoff to a head. The test of wills is already exacting a heavy diplomatic price - and it is only just beginning.

Even if a face-saver is devised, it will not arrest four disastrous trends already in motion.

A.
The steady disintegration of the United Nations for all practical purposes.

B.
The breakdown of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - the strategic pact binding the United States and Europe since World War II.

C.
The serious erosion of the European Union as a West European-oriented community, followed by the redistribution of the continent's power centers to the nations supporting the US offensive against Iraq: the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark and the new NATO members of eastern Europe.

D.
The race for domination of the Asian-Pacific region among the United States, Russia and China. The field is at present left to the bit-player in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-Il, and his two to four nuclear bombs.

In one important sense the Iraq war and regime change in Baghdad could become the historic broom for sweeping away the last political and military vestiges of the Cold War ending in the last quarter of the 20th century and herald a new strategic reality, for better or worse.

If the UN dies on its feet, it is not only because Bush, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, decided to take charge of America's world war on terror and also defeat Iraq, but because the world body, and especially the Security Council, was designed for another age, when the excesses inherent in the clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, had to be contained for the sake of world equilibrium.

The UN's structure in relation to the current state of the world, its powerhouses and sources of danger is therefore an anachronism.

By the same definition, NATO is on its way out. The only surviving superpower and military colossus is bent on relocating its strategic center of gravity from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. The determination to frustrate this epic move is behind the fierce antagonism manifested by Moscow and Beijing to an American takeover of Iraq.

These processes as they mature into American and allied military action against Iraq and further anti-terror campaigns against Middle East nations that harbor terrorists like Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, will widen the rift. Russia, France and Germany will plant more anti-US mines in every international and regional organization.

These fissures are more than likely to cut across the Middle East Quartet, which is made up of American, European Union, UN and Russian envoys, and alter the course of its "road map" to a Palestinian state. The close Bush-Sharon alliance may well be countered by a Franco-German pact with a Palestinian figure.

Moreover, Israel's trade relations, already hit by the Palestinian confrontation and unacknowledged boycotts by some European nations, will suffer further until it switches its trading partners.

http://www.debka.com