Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Keystone Kommandos?
At Strategypage, Stephen V. Cole describes Saddam's Sloppy Terrorist Commandos:
During the 1991 war, Iraqi military intelligence dispatched forty teams, each of two men, to conduct sabotage and terrorist missions against the US around the world. Saddam would not enlist outside terrorist groups, preferring to keep the operation under strict government control. The problem was that the would-be terrorists were hopelessly inept. One team hid their bomb so poorly it was found and disarmed by the embassy gardener; another team blew themselves up with their own bomb. Once the US became aware of the campaign, it quickly established that all of the teams were working out of the local Iraqi embassy (which had been under close surveillance) and all 80 of these commandoes had sequentially-numbered Iraqi passports (making them easy to identify and track). All but a few of them were rounded up in short order; a few were able to return to Iraq after abandoning their missions.
But that was last time. Cole speculates on what might happen this time. Unfortunately WorldNetDaily has a hint:
At least 20 "terror commandos" have been unleashed by Osama bin Laden to attack Britain and other European countries in the run-up to war with Iraq, a leading German newspaper claims in a story that confirms earlier WorldNetDaily reports.

Germany's popular daily Bild Zeitung reported that the Federal Intelligence Agency has issued a warning that a group of Afghan extremists, traveling on false Pakistani passports, are on their way to Europe.

The newspaper cites intelligence sources as saying that at least 20 of al-Qaida's "terror commandos" had set out for the continent via Bahrain as part of an all-out effort to attack targets in the UK, Germany, Britain, France and the Czech Republic.
More by following the links.