Second 9/11 Hijacker Tied to Abu Nidal, Iraq
When the London Telegraph reported last week that newly uncovered documents link 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta to Iraq-based Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, it wasn't the first time one of the 9/11 hijackers had been reported to have such ties.
In a development that adds evidence to the case that Iraq played a direct role in the worst attack ever on the U.S., reports show that Ziad Jarrah - who piloted the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers had discovered they were on a suicide mission - also had ties to Nidal.
Like Atta, Jarrah traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where three al-Qaeda operatives plotted their attack. The other member of the Hamburg cell was Marwan al Shehhi, who drove his plane into the World Trade Center's South Tower. Jarrah's assigned target: the White House.
"A constant figure in Jarrah's life in Germany was his great-uncle, Assem Omar Jarrah," reported the Wall Street Journal in August 2002. "According to the German magazine, Der Spiegel, Assem Jarrah worked for a long time as an informer for the Stasi, the East German secret service, while maintaining connections to [Abu] Nidal's terror group."
The Journal's Asla Aydintasbas - the only U.S.-based reporter to explore the Nidal-9/11 link in any depth - reported that the Palestinian terror kingpin spent much of his terrorism career as a hired hand, often in service to Iraq or Syria.
Just days before Aydintasbas' report, Nidal had been found dead in Baghdad of multiple gunshot wounds; his demise ruled a suicide by Saddam's security forces.
Der Spiegel reporter Gunther Latsch told Aydintasbas that Ziad Jarrah was "very close" to his great-Uncle Assem, the Abu Nidal operative: "He was the one who picked him up at the airport when [Ziad] first came to Germany. The uncle paid for his apartment. He really took care of him."
Then, just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, Uncle Assem disappeared, after living in Germany for 18 years. The 9/11 hijacker relative has not been spotted since.
Even before the 9/11 attacks, U.S. intelligence feared Abu Nidal would play a role in what they warned at the time was a growing terror alliance between Saddam and bin Laden.
In 1999, after Saddam Hussein offered Osama bin Laden asylum in Iraq, Vincent Cannistaro – the one-time head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA – told the Knight Ridder news service: "It's clear the Iraqis would like to have bin Laden in Iraq. And the Iraqis have all the technological elements, the tradecraft bin Laden lacks, and they have Abu Nidal."
Just hours before Saddam was captured last week, the London Telegraph reported that a July 2001 memo written by Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti showed that Ziad Jarrah's partner, Mohamed Atta, had successfully completed a "work program" at a base in Baghdad run by Abu Nidal.
When the London Telegraph reported last week that newly uncovered documents link 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta to Iraq-based Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, it wasn't the first time one of the 9/11 hijackers had been reported to have such ties.
In a development that adds evidence to the case that Iraq played a direct role in the worst attack ever on the U.S., reports show that Ziad Jarrah - who piloted the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers had discovered they were on a suicide mission - also had ties to Nidal.
Like Atta, Jarrah traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where three al-Qaeda operatives plotted their attack. The other member of the Hamburg cell was Marwan al Shehhi, who drove his plane into the World Trade Center's South Tower. Jarrah's assigned target: the White House.
"A constant figure in Jarrah's life in Germany was his great-uncle, Assem Omar Jarrah," reported the Wall Street Journal in August 2002. "According to the German magazine, Der Spiegel, Assem Jarrah worked for a long time as an informer for the Stasi, the East German secret service, while maintaining connections to [Abu] Nidal's terror group."
The Journal's Asla Aydintasbas - the only U.S.-based reporter to explore the Nidal-9/11 link in any depth - reported that the Palestinian terror kingpin spent much of his terrorism career as a hired hand, often in service to Iraq or Syria.
Just days before Aydintasbas' report, Nidal had been found dead in Baghdad of multiple gunshot wounds; his demise ruled a suicide by Saddam's security forces.
Der Spiegel reporter Gunther Latsch told Aydintasbas that Ziad Jarrah was "very close" to his great-Uncle Assem, the Abu Nidal operative: "He was the one who picked him up at the airport when [Ziad] first came to Germany. The uncle paid for his apartment. He really took care of him."
Then, just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, Uncle Assem disappeared, after living in Germany for 18 years. The 9/11 hijacker relative has not been spotted since.
Even before the 9/11 attacks, U.S. intelligence feared Abu Nidal would play a role in what they warned at the time was a growing terror alliance between Saddam and bin Laden.
In 1999, after Saddam Hussein offered Osama bin Laden asylum in Iraq, Vincent Cannistaro – the one-time head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA – told the Knight Ridder news service: "It's clear the Iraqis would like to have bin Laden in Iraq. And the Iraqis have all the technological elements, the tradecraft bin Laden lacks, and they have Abu Nidal."
Just hours before Saddam was captured last week, the London Telegraph reported that a July 2001 memo written by Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti showed that Ziad Jarrah's partner, Mohamed Atta, had successfully completed a "work program" at a base in Baghdad run by Abu Nidal.
