Shining the light on Saddam’s links to terror
A few weeks ago, I wrote about emerging evidence about Saddam Hussein’s links to terror training camps.
New information about the impact of these links is discussed in an article by Thomas Joscelyn.
THE REVELATION that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq trained thousands of Islamic terrorists has important ramifications for European counterterrorism efforts. According to officials, one of the groups trained in Iraq prior to the war was al Qaeda’s Algerian affiliate, the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (“GSPC”). The GSPC and its predecessor, the Armed Islamic Group (“GIA”), are well-known to European counterterrorism officials: Within the last several months, in fact, the GSPC has been at the center of several substantive terrorist plots.
Just last week, Spain arrested 20 suspected terrorists who are alleged to have been recruiting and funding suicide bombers to send to Iraq. The New York Times covered the arrests, noting that according to a statement from the Spanish Interior Ministry the group included 15 Moroccans, 3 Spaniards, a Turk, and an Algerian. The suspects were “detained in Madrid and Barcelona, and in the Basque region, and had ties to two Islamic militant organizations . . . the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [GSPC], based in Algeria, and the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group.”