US Accuses Iraq of Sheltering Al-Qaida Members

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 21, 2002

US Accuses Iraq of Sheltering Al-Qaida Members

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Amid growing speculations that Washington is pondering military strikes against Iraq, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused Baghdad of providing refuge for fugitive al-Qaida members.

"What I have said is a fact, that there are al-Qaida in a number of locations in Iraq," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.

"In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that exercises near total control of its population, it's very hard to image that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country," headded.

But the US defense secretary provided no further details on therelationship between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government led by President Saddam Hussein.

After the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Washington had once suspected that there might be a nexus between the terrorists and the Iraqi government. But so far it has failed to collect any convincing evidence to support its claim.

This was the second time this month for Rumsfeld to claim that some al-Qaida fugitives have fled to Iraq.

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