Quote:Where do you find that?
Beginning in 1999, Iraq's intelligence service began providing "financial and moral support" for a small radical Islamist Kurdish sect the report does not name. A Kurdish Islamist group called Ansar al Islam in 2002 would try to assassinate the regional prime minister in the eastern Kurdish region, Barham Salih. Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties
P.S. Here is a link to FAS, which has the actual document link
There are dozens of "small radical Islamist Kurdish sect(s)," all of whom have a common anti-PUK agenda with Saddam Hussein. What makes you think, other than that the NY Sun has put these two sentences side by side, that the one in the report is Ansar Al-Islam? And, even if so, "financial and moral support" is not the same as building bases and providing military supplies. A few thousand dinars and a pat on the back is a small price to pay for an enemy-of-your-enemy willing to do dirty work, but it is hardly evidence of an operational alliance.
I suspect that Iraqi intelligence offered some small quantity of money, and a general policy of live-and-let-kill-Kurds, so long as they focused their attention on their mutual enemy, while simultaneously trying to infiltrate their organization to help check the potential threat of Islamist insurrection. I suspect you would find the same pattern with most anti-Kurdish Nationalist terrorist groups.
-Jester
Interesting: The quantity usually mentioned in the reports for supporting various terrorist groups (didn't find the Kurdish Islamist reference in particular, do you have a page number?) was 20,000 dinars/yr. At the 1990's - early 2000s exchange rates, that would be anywhere from about $30,000 US to about five bucks, at rock bottom.