A year after the United States led a coalition of 28 nations into war against Iraq, Saddam Hussein is still trying to arm his country with chemical weapons, according to intelligence reports reaching the West.
The Israeli daily Ma’ariv, quoting Western intelligence sources in London, reported last Friday that the United States recently thwarted an attempt to transfer chemical warfare equipment produced in North Korea to Iraq.
The sources said a freighter carrying the equipment to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba, from where it was to be trucked to Iraq, was diverted to a port in Denmark.
Iraqi opposition sources were quoted as saying the Baghdad regime has trained scores of terrorist rings that will be unleashed on the countries that participated in the Persian Gulf War last year.
The operation is scheduled to start on Jan. 17, the first anniversary of the war. It is intended to raise the morale of the Iraqi people and Hussein’s defeated army, the sources said.
Cairo meanwhile is investigating an alleged terrorist from Iraq who entered Egypt on a false passport last week, the Egyptian news agency Mena reported.
The suspect was arrested as he debarked from a ferry at Nueibah, in Sinai, that had sailed from Aqaba. He carried a passport in the name of an Egyptian laborer who had been working in Iraq.
Egyptian intelligence imposed a news blackout on the case. The suspect may have connections with terrorists in Egypt.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
