Iraq Said To Have Financed Bombings 

Sep 13, 2001

JERUSALEM [MENL] -- Iraq is believed to have recruited Saudi billionaire fugitive
Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic allies to carry out the suicide attacks around the United
States.

Israeli officials and intelligence analysts said the suicide hijackings that downed the World
Trade Center and destroyed parts of the Pentagon was too large an operation for any one
group. The analysts said the operation was also too big even for a coalition of Islamic
terrorists headed by Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is accused of
masterminding the bombings of the U.S. embassies in eastern African in 1998.

Intelligence sources briefed the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on late Tuesday,
hours after the catastrophe in New York and Washington. The sources were quoted as telling
the Cabinet that a Middle East government was probably the sponsor of the attack.

The most likely sponsor for such an attack, the sources said, is Iraq. The Baghdad regime
has long maintained an alliance with Bin Laden and Islamic groups.

"All the steps lead to him [Bin Laden]," Reuven Paz, a leading expert on Islamic terrorism,
said. "Of all the countries, Iraq seems the most reasonable [candidate]."

In Baghdad, Iraqi state television appeared to welcome the bombings. The television said the
spate of attacks demonstrated the vulnerability of the United States.
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