AnsarAl-Islam

From 911Encyclopedia:

Due to various sources, Ansar al-islam was supported by Saddam Hussein to keep the kurds under control and oppose a revolution against him. This includes two other groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK, lead by Jalal Talibani) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). It looked therefore absurde, that this group had been undermined by Bin Laden supporters. Mala Kreker was a former member of a Kurdish Islamic party who joined Ansar al-Islam after its formation in September 2001. Kreker replaced Abu Abdullah Shafae ­ an Iraqi Kurd. Since the so called Sept. 23, 2001-ambush, peshmerga have pushed Ansar al-Islam back toward the Iranian border where they retain a stronghold in the town of Biara and surrounding villages. Another of the group's leaders, Abu Abdul Rahman - who, the Kurds claim, was sent to northern Iraq by bin Laden - was killed in fighting in October 2001. Barhim Salih, a PUK leader, says a second group affiliated with Ansar al-Islam is working from the Baghdad-controlled city of Mosul. The Kurdish sources say Hussein's involvement in any mission to destabilize their autonomous ministate would not surprise them. Since 1991, Baghdad has been unable to control the north, because of the no-fly zone created by the US and England and enforced by the US military from a base in Turkey. In February 2003, a secret plan, as found out by ABC News, Ansar-al-Islam planned to attack U.S. Special Forces in Northern Iraq. Source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/2020/iraq030221_ansar.html

NOTE: There is another group, called Ansar al-Islam, who was already established in 1907- by Kamal al-Din Muhammad Tukur in Nigeria. Source: http://iupjournals.org/ral/ral28-3.html

In March 2002, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg claimed in "The Great Terror," in the March 25, 2002, issue of The New Yorker, that Ansar al-Islams organization "has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan." In an interview with the New Yorker, Goldberg however explained: "I'm making no conclusions; I'm just reporting what I've heard." In August 2002, Ansar-al islam was linked to a chemical weapons operation, as reported by CNN. Unexplainably, in November 2002, when the UN Inspectors arrived in Iraq, this "operation" wasn't put on the priority list.