BIN LADEN, SADDAM TEAM FOR TERROR
Saddam Hussein is joining forces with Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden to launch a joint terror counterstrike against the United States and Britain, a new report says.
Feeling the sting of a U.S. bombing campaign, Saddam has reached out to the millionaire mastermind of the two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa - hoping to tap into bin Laden's network of terrorists, Newsweek says in this week's edition.
An Arab intelligence expert, reported to know Saddam personally, told the magazine that "very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis."
The source claims that the joint attacks would be aimed primarily at U.S. and British targets in the Islamic world.
The contacts between Saddam and bin Laden have so far been limited to lower-level agents, according to U.S. intelligence sources cited by the magazine.
An alliance would match Saddam's weapons - including easy-to-hide biological agents - and bin Laden's force of terror zealots.
Bin Laden is known to have coveted biological and chemical weapons.
A U.S. cruise-missile attack against bin Laden targeted a factory that he owns in Sudan, where the United States believes he was trying to manufacture chemical weapons.
In an interview with Newsweek at his desert camp in Afghanistan, bin Laden confirmed that civilian Americans are as much a target as the military or government agencies.
"Muslim scholars have issued [a religious order] against any American who pays taxes to his government," said bin Laden. "He is our target, because he is helping the American war machine against the Muslim nation."
Bin Laden has been waging a public-relations war, granting interviews to both Newsweek and Time magazines.
Clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle at his side, bin Laden conceded to Time that he "instigated" the attack on the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But he falls short of taking the blame.
"Our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did that," said bin Laden.
"I did not order [the attacks], but was very glad for what happened to the American spies in East Africa," the Saudi exile told Newsweek.
Meanwhile, U.N. officials are trying to convince Baghdad not to ban American and British nationals from working on humanitarian teams in Iraq.
The talks are aimed at averting a new crisis just two weeks after the United States and Britain ended airstrikes to punish Baghdad for refusing to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspections.
The U.N. officials said Baghdad told them it was concerned for the safety of Americans and Britons in Iraq after the raids, and would not renew visas for them.
Diplomats said Iraq's decision could affect 18 American and British citizens working throughout Iraq for the U.N. humanitarian programs.
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