Iraq Repeats Denial of Any Link With Terrorist Attacks in USIraq had no role in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Ahmed repeated in a statement carried by the weekly Al-Iktisadi on Wednesday."The United States, Britain, the Western countries and the rest of the world know well that Iraq has no link with the attacks," Ahmed declared. The statement followed a report by the Cable News Network (CNN) that Mohammed Atta, one of the alleged plane hijackers who were on the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center, met an Iraqi intelligence official in Europe earlier this year. "(U.S.) investigators caution that the alleged meeting does not prove that Baghdad had a hand in the attacks, but they are looking into it at this point," CNN said. On Saturday, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Salah already stated during his visit to Egypt that Baghdad "had nothing to do with" the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Power admitted on Sunday that the U.S. had found no link between Iraq and the terrorist attacks. "So far we have not discerned any link between the Iraqi government and what happened the other day, but we are certainly examining the links that might exist between what happened the other day and any country and any territory in the world," Powell said in a televised interview. Four U.S. airliner planes were hijacked in the September 11 terror attacks. Two of the planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one slammed into the Pentagon and another crashed in Pennsylvania. More than 5,000 people are feared killed in the attacks. |
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