Tapes Incriminate ‘Chemical Ali’

[American Patriot]

Tapes Incriminate ‘Chemical Ali’
ALJazeera.com ^ | 1/10/07



BAGHDAD, 9 January 2007 — Saddam Hussein and his cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid discussed how chemical weapons would exterminate thousands before unleashing them on Kurds in 1988, according to tapes played yesterday in a trial of former Iraqi officials. “I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all,” a voice identified by prosecutors as that of Ali Hassan, or “Chemical Ali”, is heard saying.


“Who is going to say anything? The international community? Curse the international community,” the voice continued. “Yes, it’s effective, especially on those who don’t wear a mask immediately, as we understand,” a voice identified as Saddam’s is heard saying on another tape.


“Sir, does it exterminate thousands?” a voice asks back. “Yes, it exterminates thousands and forces them not to eat or drink and they will have to evacuate their homes without taking anything with them, until we can finally purge them,” the voice identified as that of Saddam answers.


With Saddam’s chair empty, nine days after he was hanged, Ali Hassan and five other Baath party officials were being tried for their roles in the 1988 Anfal military campaign in northern Kurdistan. Prosecutors said 180,000 people were killed, many of them gassed. Many Kurds regret the chief suspect can no longer face justice for his role in the campaign against them, but they hope others share his fate on the gallows.


Saddam was hanged Dec. 30 after being convicted in an earlier trial for his role in killing 148 Shiites in the 1980s.


Ali Hassan, who faces charges of genocide, is considered the main enforcer of the Anfal campaign. Defendants have said Anfal was a legitimate military operation targeting Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Shiite Iran during the last stages of the Iraq-Iran war.


(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...

[American Patriot]

Bomb suspect killed in Somalia strike?
MSNBC ^ | 01/10/07 | Jim Miklaszewski

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The suspected al-Qaida militant who planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa was killed in an American airstrike in Somalia, an official said Wednesday.

“I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage,” Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press. “One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead.”

But in Washington, U.S. military and intelligence officials told NBC News that they have no information that supports Hassan's claim.

Hassan also said that American airstrikes in Somalia would continue.

“I know it happened yesterday, it will happen today and it will happen tomorrow,” he said.

Mohammed allegedly planned the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

Mohammed is thought to have been the main target of an American helicopter attack Monday afternoon on Badmadow island off southern Somalia.

U.S. attack helicopters also strafed suspected al-Qaida fighters in southern Somalia on Tuesday, witnesses said.

The two days of airstrikes by U.S. forces were the first American offensives in the African country since 18 U.S. soldiers were killed here in 1993.

U.S. officials speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of its sensitive nature had said earlier that the strike in southern Somalia on Monday killed five to 10 people believed to be associated with al-Qaida.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...