More Iraqi Terror Links Discovered

[redman]

From CNN.com:

Iraqi link to two Abu Sayyaf bomb plots: report

MANILA, Philippines (AP) --A cell phone used by a member of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group to call an Iraqi diplomat was later employed in a failed attempt to trigger a bomb, according to a confidential Philippine intelligence report.

Iraqi Consul Husham Husain was expelled last week after the report claimed he received a call from an Abu Sayyaf member on October 3 last year, a day after a bomb in southern Zamboanga city killed a U.S. soldier and two other people.

The caller was not identified.

The Iraqi Embassy has denied any links to Philippine dissident groups, including the Abu Sayyaf, which is on a U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and has been loosely linked to al Qaeda.

Six days after the contact was made, the caller's cell phone was used to try to set off another bomb in Zamboanga's San Roque district, near the military's Southern Command headquarters, but it failed to go off, according to the intelligence report, obtained by The Associated Press.

Police later recovered the bomb and the cell phone, a security official said. The cell phone listed contacts for Hamsiraji Sali, one of five Abu Sayyaf leaders on a U.S. wanted list.

Sali, believed to be hiding on southern Basilan island, has threatened to launch terror attacks in Manila and other Philippine cities if the United States attacks Iraq, the intelligence report says.

Last week, Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople confronted Iraqi Charge d'Affaires Samir A-Masih Bolus with the intelligence report linking Husain to the Abu Sayyaf.

But the government has not offered evidence beyond the phone call, and said more detailed information could not be released because the sources could be compromised.

Before he left the country last Thursday, Husain denied any wrongdoing.

In Baghdad, a Foreign Ministry spokesman labeled Manila's decision to expel Husain as part of an extensive U.S. propaganda campaign "in order to distort the position of Iraq and to fabricate false evidence by which the U.S. administration could justify its colonial and Zionist campaign against Iraq."

The intelligence report says other Iraqi diplomats in the country are being monitored.

[Kilmer17]

C'mon, havent we established that it's all about oil?

[Glenn X]

Ditto, Kilmer. And Mansoor Ijaz is full of it. :shootinth