Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda Link Allegations Timeline - Inter-war Period - 1998 - March, Baghdad

March, Baghdad

• According to Inigo Gilmore of London's Telegraph, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, i.e., the Mukhabarat, arranged for an envoy from bin Laden to travel from Sudan to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi officials. Gilmore's claim is based on three stapled pages that he claims to have found in the Mukhabarat headquarters in early 2003, which he smuggled out of the building while it was guarded by American troops. Gilmore stated that the CIA had already been through the building for intelligence "but they seem to have missed this particular document."

• According to the handwritten documents, the Al-Qaeda envoy stayed at the al-Mansour Melia, a first class hotel. A letter with this document states that the envoy was a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It also reads

  According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden.

  The letter refers to al-Qaeda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to be conveyed to bin Laden through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The meeting was allegedly extended by a week and the document "recommends contacts with bin Laden."

• Based on these documents the Telegraph stated that these "Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime."

• According to the Observer, however, these Baghdad talks "are thought to have ended disastrously for the Iraqis, as bin Laden rejected any kind of alliance, preferring to pursue his own policy of global jihad.".