Israel's military intelligence chief said in an interview Sunday that Iraq was not involved in the September 11 terror attacks against the United States.
"I have not found any direct links between Iraq and the plane hijackings and terrorist attacks in the United States," Gen. Amos Malka told the Yediot Aharonot daily, cited by AFP.
"I am aware that many people wonder how such attacks could have been organized without the help of a state, and suspect Iraq or Iran," Malka told the newspaper.
"But on a professional level I have not detected any Iraqi links or infrastructure that we could identify as being connected to these attacks," the general added.
Also, the Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted a senior Israeli army official as saying Sunday that the “[Israeli army] believes Iraq was probably not involved in the recent attacks on the United States.”
But the paper quoted senior security sources as indicating that “Iran could have had a hand in planning them.”
"We don't have any information to support the possibility that Iraq is part of the plot," said the senior army officer.
"But we can't say the same for the Iranians. They are very deeply involved in everything that carries the label of Islamic radical terrorism. Iran should prove that they are not in it," he added.
"We don't know for sure who was behind this attack. It was obviously radical Islam, but who was the precise mastermind? We can't tell yet. We don't have all the information the Americans have."
"But Iran comes from the same school as [Osama] bin Laden. Hizbollah and Hamas are all from the same school of thought. Iran is the only country in the world that actually adopts this ideology and is working on its capabilities to get hold of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Together with this ideology and these sort of threats, you can understand the kind of threat the free world and Israel is facing," said the senior officer, quoted by the paper.
Jane's Security, a London-based publication specialized in defense and intelligence issues, reported on Thursday that Israeli intelligence suspected Iraq of sponsoring the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
It singled out Imad Mughniyeh, believed to be head of special overseas operations for Hizbollah group, and the Egyptian Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri, a suspected senior member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, as the two masterminds behind the US attacks.
One Israeli intelligence source told Jane's: "We believe that the operational brains behind the New York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (SSO)."
According to the sources one of the Iraqi intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman, was captured last October by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan.
Jane's also quoted an expert as saying: "In recent months, there was a change, and Iraq decided to get into the terror business."
Over the past few days Israel has been bracing for a remake of the 1991 Gulf War, during which Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's army responded to the US-led operation by firing 39 Scud missiles on Israel, killing two people, injuring hundreds and causing huge material damage – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
