Al Qaeda Base in Kurdistan?

S U L A I M A N I A H, Northern Iraq, Dec. 31, 2002 -- An attempted assassination case in northern Iraq could be the key link in a chain of evidence that establishes the presence of al Qaeda there, officials with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan say.

The PUK, one of two controlling factions in northern Iraq, is preparing formal murder charges against Qais Ibrahim Khadir, 26, an Islamic extremist who freely admits he tried to kill the PUK's Barham Salih, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, in April.

The region of northern Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan has been autonomous from Baghdad since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The PUK controls the eastern part of the autonomous zone and the western areas are controlled by its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Khadir says he was one of the three men who engaged Salih's bodyguards in a running gunbattle on a narrow, upscale street near Salih's home in the town of Sulaimaniah.

Two of the assailants and five of Salih's bodyguards were killed, and another five bodyguards wounded. The mother of one of the slain bodyguards died of a heart attack when she received the news of her son's death.

The police say Khadir fired more than 140 bullets in the 10-minute firefight, was shot twice in the leg and briefly escaped. Khadir claims he personally killed three of the bodyguards.

Khadir told ABCNEWS that soon after his capture, enraged police officers drove him to the scene of the shootout, where he boasted that he would repeat the attack if given the chance.

An Alternative to Afghanistan

Salih, the prime minister, told ABCNEWS that Khadir is a member of the group Ansar al-Islam ("Supporters of Islam"), which he said "was set up in northern Iraq on Sept. 1, 2001, at the behest of Osama bin Laden."

Salih said the location was chosen "in anticipation of the fallout from Sept. 11." He said bin Laden's al Qaeda network was seeking an "alternative base" — "in case Afghanistan became a denied area to them."

Khadir has told ABCNEWS he was an Ansar sympathizer but that he had acted independently in the attempt to kill Salih. He said his ideas were nonetheless "very close" to bin Laden's and that they "came from the same source."

He said he chose the prime minister as a target because he was "an infidel" and because Salih, who represented the PUK in Washington in the 1990s, had been "watered like a plant by U.S. policies."

PUK leaders are revisiting the Khadir case after Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb said he believes a top al Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the murder of an American diplomat is hiding in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ahmed al-Kalaylah, who is better known as Abu Musab al- Zargawi, is being sought for his alleged role in the killing of Laurence Foley, the USAID officer gunned down Oct. 28 outside his home in Amman.

If he is in northern Iraq, one possibility is that he might be at the Ansar al-Islam camp, which is located about 65 miles from Sulaimaniah.

From One Murder Suspect to Another

PUK leaders maintain that al-Zargawi and Khadir met in the Ansar al-Islam camp and the al Qaeda operative personally ordered the attack on Salih.

According to PUK Politboro member Nawshirwan Mustafa Amin, Syrian intelligence first alerted the PUK to the presence of al-Zargawi two months ago.

Khadir said he has since been interrogated by Syrian and Egyptian intelligence. He described the agents as "arrogant."

Shown a photo of al-Zargawi, the imprisoned Khadir admitted he had met "someone who looked like" the man in the photo, but he claimed it was not the man in question.

The region controlled by Ansar al-Islam is located in the rugged Surren Mountains in a southeast corner of Iraqi Kurdistan. It is an enclave said to contain approximately 700 extremists, including 100 foreigners.

It lies along the Iranian border, an area known in local shorthand as Biarrah, which is the name of the main village controlled by the guerrilla group. In recent weeks the Ansar force has killed dozens of Kurdish peshmerga — a Kurdish term for fighters "who face death."

‘Urgent’ Threat, U.S. Help Promised

PUK leaders say that past reluctance by U.S. intelligence to accept Ansar as a branch of the al Qaeda network has undergone a dramatic reversal in the last few weeks.

According to a high-ranking Kurdish official, a CIA team stationed near Sulaimaniah recently met with PUK leaders and characterized the threat represented by the guerrillas as "urgent."

The official, who said he was present at the meeting, said the intelligence team informed PUK leaders that U.S. military assistance for an offensive against Ansar al-Islam was "imminent" and that the promised aid for an attack would be separate from — and in advance of — threatened military action against Baghdad.

"We were told that special forces do not want to land here with this unresolved question at their backs," the official told ABCNEWS, speaking on the condition he not be identified by name.

A recent report in The New York Times of a chance encounter with a U.S. intelligence team, as well as increasing number of similar sightings by Kurdish shop-owners and others, have reinforced reports of U.S. activity in the region.

A government minister also confirmed to ABCNEWS that CIA interrogators in northern Iraq are actively interviewing captured Ansar guerrillas.

Pre-emptive Action

PUK military officers say they now have a force of almost 5,000 peshmerga in place opposite positions of Ansar al-Islam. Many observers suspect that any U.S. attack on Ansar positions prior to the expected war on Iraq would be limited to aerial bombardment and would not involve U.S. ground forces.

Last week, Turkey's National Security Council met to consider the U.S. request to launch attacks on Iraq from Turkish soil. The U.S. request specifically includes permission to stage a prior attack on Ansar al-Islam from Turkey, according to a well-placed source in Ankara.

Politically, there is the question of negative international reaction to an attack inside Iraq while the U.N inspections are still under way. But as the recent U.S. missile strike on a car suspected of carrying al Qaeda members in Yemen suggests, an attack on Biarrah might be defended under the stated Bush administration policy of taking the fight against terrorism to every corner of the world.

Militarily, a campaign against guerrillas like Ansar, who are mixed in with the local civilian population behind a heavily mined frontier, could prove far trickier than targeting a vehicle on the highway in Yemen.

If a U.S.-sponsored attack does take place, and if the Pentagon utilizes PUK forces on the ground, the question is whether Ansar guerrillas might escape to Iran across the snow-filled mountains, a harsh terrain that has been compared to Tora Bora in Afghanistan.

Eager Killer

As speculation grows about possible U.S. involvement in an attack on Ansar al-Islam, Khadir passes his time in an unheated cell. He says he is confident that any U.S. operation would fail, in part because it would not be a surprise.

"Even the simplest person in Biarrah knows that America is planning to attack," he said.

His captors are eager to advance the argument that his assassination attempt was directed by al Qaeda. Khadir, whom they describe as "very clever," is clearly enjoying his renewed notoriety.

Warming himself by a kerosene heater in an interrogator's office, he jokes with and occasionally chastises one of his jailers. He waxes poetic, recalling the pleasure hefelt on the morning he set out to assassinate the prime minister. "My heart was coated with honey," he said.

At another point during the interview, the prisoner said he viewed the assassination plot as "part of" the events of Sept. 11. "Anyone who is part of Sept. 11 will be on the black list of America, but he will be on the white list of God."

Choosing Sides

Such remarks rankle bodyguards who survived the shootout that killed their five colleagues last spring.

Nahro Qadir, 23, one of the prime minister's guards who took part in the gunbattle, confessed he would like to kill Khadir "10 times over, then bring him back to life to kill him again."

The chief of security in Sulaimaniah, Sarkout Quba, said Khadir ought to be killed "in such a way that he couldn't come back to life in paradise."

Prime Minister Salih, the intended target of the assassination plot, brands such sentiments as "Kurdish Justice 101," and he says they are indicative of an old fashioned society he would like to change.

Ironically, if the courts decide Khadir should face capital punishment, the decision to sign the required death warrant may land squarely in the lap of the prime minister himself. At present, there are several dozen prisoners on death row. But there is a moratorium on executions in effect and Salih, in his two years as prime minister, has yet to sign a death warrant.

The Khadir case, he admits, places him in a "personal and moral dilemma." He expects "tremendous pressure" from the families of the slain bodyguards to approve the execution. Yet Salih, a former member of the human rights group Amnesty International, said he does not believe in the death penalty.

"But when you lose dear friends," he said, "it is hard to remove the personal element."