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| Axis of Evil |
| Uday sez Jund al-Islam is an Iranian creation... |
| 2002-08-24 |
| Iran, not al-Qaeda, is behind a hardline Islamist group in Iraq's Kurdish-rebel-held north which has reportedly experimented with deadly toxin on animals, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday said Friday. "The Iranians set up the Islamist group called Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam) which has not the slightest connection with Islam but equally has no link with the al-Qaeda network," Uday told his Youth TV network. "It's a straightforward Iranian trick. The Iranians know perfectly well that Kurdistan is a Sunni Muslim region and the idea of transforming it into a Shiite area is completely out of the question, so they must find another game to play." So a Shi'ite terrorist state sets up an organization of Sunni terrorists in a neighboring Sunni area? I suppose that makes sense, if the primary goal is terrorism rather than Shi'ite theology... Uday's comments came after Kurdish rebel leader Jalal Talabani hinted earlier this week that Baghdad might have links with a group of former Arab volunteers from the war in Afghanistan who had found refuge with a small rival faction, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan (IMIK). So the terror skills were there, and they just showed up when the Talibs were thumped. But they still have to buy groceries, and, more important, arms and ammunition. So who's supporting them? Western press reports have charged that both Baghdad and Tehran have provided support to the Ansar al-Islam (Followers of Islam), the hardline IMIK offshoot said to have sheltered the fugitive former al-Qaeda fighters. Both? Well, it might make sense if all they want to do is destabilize the Kurdish-held areas. Kinda short-sighted, but that's sure not unusual. And maybe they're more concerned at this point with wiping out the Sufis... Uday's accusations of Shiite proselytism against Jund al-Islam highlighted his insistence that the group had no links to al-Qaeda — like its longtime patrons, Afghanistan's Taliban militia, the group is fanatically anti-Shiite. I'm confused. I thought Jund al-Islam were Sunnis? Abu Zubaydah used to be their controller. Uday seems to be working pretty hard to distance the Ba'ath regime from al-Qaeda... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |