Reality Check on Collin Powell's Security Council Evidence Against Iraq - PART II
-- Truth behind US 'poison factory' claim
Collin Powell claimed he had proof positive Iraq was linked to al-Qaida through Ansar al-Islam, a small, 600-man Islamist group in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq (not under Saddam's control), and through a "deadly terrorist network" led by one Abu Musa al-Zarqawi.
He confidently described the compound run by Ansar al-Islam - as a 'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.' They were, he hinted, a global menace - and more than that they were the elusive link between Osama bin Laden and Iraq.
Luke Harding reports in the Observer, February, 9, 2003 from the terrorist camp in northern Iraq named by Colin Powell as a centre of the al-Qaeda international network
Ansar al Islam - the Islamic group that uses the compound identified by Powell as a military HQ to launch murderous attacks against secular Kurdish opponents - yesterday invited me and several other foreign journalists into their territory for the first time.
The radical terrorist group controls a tiny mountainous chunk of Kurdistan, the self-rule enclave of northern Iraq. Mohammad Hasan, spokesman for Ansar al-Islam,Hassan took the unprecedented step of inviting journalists into what was previously forbidden territory in an almost certainly doomed attempt to prevent an American missile strike once the war with Iraq kicks off. Ali Bapir, a warlord in the neighbouring town of Khormal, lent us several fighters armed with machine guns and we set off.
We drove past an Ansar checkpoint. The landscape was littered with the ruins of demolished houses, destroyed during Saddam's infamous Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988. At the corner of the valley we passed a pink mosque, with sandbagging on the roof. Washing hung from a courtyard. A group of Ansar fighters - in green military fatigues - smiled and waved us on. Several of their comrades were in the graveyard across the road. There were numerous fresh plots, each marked with a black flag. After 20 minutes' drive along a twisting mountain track we arrived in Serget - the village identified from space by American satellite as a haven of terrorist activity.
If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
It emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking. In the kitchen, I discovered some chopped up tomatoes but not much else.
And yet, despite the fact there appeared to be no evidence of chemical experimentation, Ansar's complex was lavish for an organisation that purports to be made up merely of simple Muslims. Concealed in a concrete bunker, we discovered a sophisticated television studio, complete with cameras, editing equipment and a scanner. In a neighbouring room were several computers, beneath shelves full of videotapes. Until recently Ansar had its own website where the faithful could log on to footage of Ansar guerrillas in battle. In small concrete bunkers the fighters operated their own radio station, Radio Jihad. The announcer had clearly been sitting on an empty box of explosives.
Ansar's sources of funding remain mysterious. But while they appear to pose no real threat to Washington or London, Ansar's fighters are a brutal bunch. They have so far killed more than 800 opposition Kurdish fighters. They have shot dead several civilians. They have even tried - last April - to assassinate the Prime Minister of the neighbouring town of Sulamaniyah, the mild-mannered Dr Barham Salih.
Reality Check on Collin Powell's Security Council Evidence Against Iraq - PART II
-- Truth behind US 'poison factory' claim
Collin Powell claimed he had proof positive Iraq was linked to al-Qaida through Ansar al-Islam, a small, 600-man Islamist group in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq (not under Saddam's control), and through a "deadly terrorist network" led by one Abu Musa al-Zarqawi.
He confidently described the compound run by Ansar al-Islam - as a 'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.' They were, he hinted, a global menace - and more than that they were the elusive link between Osama bin Laden and Iraq.
Luke Harding reports in the Observer, February, 9, 2003 from the terrorist camp in northern Iraq named by Colin Powell as a centre of the al-Qaeda international network
Ansar al Islam - the Islamic group that uses the compound identified by Powell as a military HQ to launch murderous attacks against secular Kurdish opponents - yesterday invited me and several other foreign journalists into their territory for the first time.
The radical terrorist group controls a tiny mountainous chunk of Kurdistan, the self-rule enclave of northern Iraq. Mohammad Hasan, spokesman for Ansar al-Islam,Hassan took the unprecedented step of inviting journalists into what was previously forbidden territory in an almost certainly doomed attempt to prevent an American missile strike once the war with Iraq kicks off. Ali Bapir, a warlord in the neighbouring town of Khormal, lent us several fighters armed with machine guns and we set off.
We drove past an Ansar checkpoint. The landscape was littered with the ruins of demolished houses, destroyed during Saddam's infamous Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988. At the corner of the valley we passed a pink mosque, with sandbagging on the roof. Washing hung from a courtyard. A group of Ansar fighters - in green military fatigues - smiled and waved us on. Several of their comrades were in the graveyard across the road. There were numerous fresh plots, each marked with a black flag. After 20 minutes' drive along a twisting mountain track we arrived in Serget - the village identified from space by American satellite as a haven of terrorist activity.
If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
It emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking. In the kitchen, I discovered some chopped up tomatoes but not much else.
And yet, despite the fact there appeared to be no evidence of chemical experimentation, Ansar's complex was lavish for an organisation that purports to be made up merely of simple Muslims. Concealed in a concrete bunker, we discovered a sophisticated television studio, complete with cameras, editing equipment and a scanner. In a neighbouring room were several computers, beneath shelves full of videotapes. Until recently Ansar had its own website where the faithful could log on to footage of Ansar guerrillas in battle. In small concrete bunkers the fighters operated their own radio station, Radio Jihad. The announcer had clearly been sitting on an empty box of explosives.
Ansar's sources of funding remain mysterious. But while they appear to pose no real threat to Washington or London, Ansar's fighters are a brutal bunch. They have so far killed more than 800 opposition Kurdish fighters. They have shot dead several civilians. They have even tried - last April - to assassinate the Prime Minister of the neighbouring town of Sulamaniyah, the mild-mannered Dr Barham Salih.
