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Analysis:
Note the Iraqi official says, We hope that they will win and control, referring to the Taliban. According to this notebook, Iraq has clearly thrown its support to the Taliban, the epicenter of Islamic Jihad. This is a clear indication that Saddam had no problem working with Jihadists outside of Iraq.
According to the notebook, the Iraqi official also tells the Maulana: The third point which is important for us is outside Afghanistan. It is the spiritual relation which ties us with the Association of Islamic Scholars and we know your role in supporting the Iraqi cause and the effect you have on the Pakistani street. This statement may indicate that a previous relationship was in place before this meeting between the Saddam Regime and the Maulana.
This excerpt from the notebook indicates that both the Taliban and Saddam Regime agreed to a secret relationship involving intelligence services. We do not know the scope or extent of that operational relationship, but this notebook and other documents give us further clues. It might well be noted that if Saddam Hussein was merely looking for an Islamic voice to take up his cause, there are plenty of Arab and Muslim organizations that do not depend on violence and terrorism directed at the United States. This point is illustrated in the BBC article Anger and Dismay in South Asia:
"Saddam Hussein is a hero of Muslims," a protester cried at a rally in the northwestern city of Peshawar, AFP reports."We want the government to give us permission to go to Iraq to fight against the U.S. forces," another protester told hundreds of supporters.Supporters of the Islamic Jamaat-i-Islami party assembled in the eastern city of Lahore, chanting "Bush is a dog," and "Save Iraqi children," AFP reports."America has signed its own death warrant," Islamist leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman said.
Since the Iraqi official in this meeting is not named, we can not be certain with whom the Maulana is meeting. But there are clues. First, it is clear Rahman has high level access and would most likely be meeting with a senior member of the government, a department head. This official talks about an intelligence based relationship indicating this might be the chief of the IIS, the former Iraq Intelligence Service. The Maulana says, I already met with Mr. the Vice President and the previous head of the directorate, may God rest his soul. This may indicate he is speaking to the current head of the directorate. An excerpt from the website Global Security provides insight:
One killing believed to be politically motivated included that of Intelligence Chief Rafa Daham Mujawwal Al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's second cousin and the former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey. Rafa died Oct. 11, 1999, three days after he was removed from his post. Government explanations for his death included both that he had died in a car crash and that he had suffered a heart attack
So it seems possible the IIS Chief died just prior to this meeting and the Maulana is meeting with the new IIS chief. The new IIS chief would have been Tahir Jalil Habbush al Tikriti, who according to the Multi-National Forces' Iraq Web site as of January, 2006 is still listed as at large. Of course, if he has not been captured, it is reasonable to assume he has not been interrogated.
Tahir Jalil Habbush al Tikriti came to public attention in December, 2003 when the Telegraph UK reported Terrorist Behind September 11th Strike was Trained by Saddam.
Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.
In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".
Atta, of course, led the 9/11 attacks. It is interesting to note in this new context of an intelligence based relationship between the Taliban and Saddam regime, orchestrated by Pakistani contacts, specifically Maulana Rahman, that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Pakistani passport holder arrested in Pakistan in 2003. It also is worth noting that Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who officials say sent cash to lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, also was arrested in Pakistan with Khalid. Both of these men were arrested in the home of or a member of Pakistan's largest religious political party, Jamaat Islami, of which Maulana Fazlur Rahman is a leader. A further translation from this notebook indicates that in another meeting, again believed to be with the Maulana, joint military training between the Taliban and the Iraqi military is proposed.
Due to the information provided in this notebook, we see a possible secret, intelligence based, operational relationship between the Taliban and the Saddam regime via Maulana Fazlur Rahman. We can discern that the Maulana most likely is meeting with Habbush al Tikriti, implicated in documents published by the Telegraph newspaper in reference to the training of Atta in Iraq. We also have an annotation that indicates Pakistani Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a known bin Laden associate, Al Qaeda terrorist and a 1998 fatwa co-signatory, also was traveling to Iraq in 1999. A further translation from this notebook indicates that in another meeting, again with the Maulana, the Taliban proposes joint military training with the Iraqi military.
