Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2003. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.


Saturday, February 8, 2003


Islamic militants show press the camp Powell called poison site
By BORZOU DARAGAHI
Associated Press Writer

SARGAT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the 
camp in northern Iraq a terrorist poison and explosives training center, 
a deadly link in a "sinister nexus" binding Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

But journalists who visited the site depicted in Powell's satellite 
photo found a half-built cinderblock compound filled with heavily armed 
Kurdish men, video equipment and children - but no obvious sign of 
chemical weapons manufacturing.

"You can search as you like," said Mohammad Hassan, a spokesman for 
the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which controls the camp and 
the surrounding village. "There are no chemical weapons here."

Ansar al-Islam, believed to have ties to al-Qaida, says the camp 
serves as its administrative office for Sargat village, living quarters 
and a propaganda video studio.

A half-dozen children and some teenagers watched with curiosity as 
Western journalists arrived in a convoy of white SUVs. A couple of dozen 
bearded men in black turbans, heavily armed with Kalashnikovs and 
grenades, watched closely.

During his appearance before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, 
Powell displayed a satellite photo of this camp, which was identified as 
"Terrorist Poison and Explosive Factory, Khurmal."

Powell said the camp was run by al-Qaida fugitives from Afghanistan 
who were under the protection of Ansar al-Islam here in the autonomous 
Kurdish area of Iraq in a region beyond Saddam Hussein's control.

But Powell maintained that a senior member of Ansar al-Islam was a 
Saddam agent, implying a tenuous link between Baghdad and the terrorists 
who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Western journalists were brought to this camp, with its distinctive 
polygon-shaped fencing and nearby hills, by the Islamic Group of 
Kurdistan, a moderate Muslim organization which maintains good relations 
with Ansar al-Islam.

The compound, accessible by a long dirt road, is in a village of 
several hundred people at the base of the massive Zagros mountains 
separating Iraq from Iran.

Security appeared lax at the compound, whose jagged barbed-wire 
perimeter matched a satellite photograph Powell displayed in his 
Security Council presentation.

As evidence that the camp serves as a housing area, child-sized 
plastic slippers could be seen in the doorways. A refrigerator had been 
turned into a closet and filled with colorful women's clothes. The most 
sophisticated equipment seen at the site was the video gear and 
makeshift television studio Ansar says it uses to make its propaganda 
films.

Ansar officials speculated that Powell was misled in his accusations 
of a poison factory by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two 
parties governing the autonomous northern Kurdish section of Iraq. Ansar 
has been at war for two years with the PUK.

"Everything Powell said about us is untrue," said a man calling 
himself Ayoub Hawleri. Other Kurds referred to him as Ayoub Afghani, who 
manufactures explosives for suicide bombers.

"He was just repeating the PUK's lies," Ayoub said.

The Patriotic Union said Powell's allegations about the poison 
laboratory were correct and it was in the Sargat compound in an area 
accessible only to those who had come from Afghanistan and had "ties to 
al-Qaida." A PUK spokeswoman said Saturday that Ansar could have moved 
the facility before the journalists got there.

Though Ansar officials allowed the journalists access to the site, 
they did not permit reporters to talk to anyone except two designated 
Ansar officials.

Hawleri said he was shocked and surprised after watching Powell's 
speech, which said Ansar harbored Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, a suspected 
al-Qaida operative and alleged assassin of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley 
in Jordan last year.

"The first time I even heard of al-Zarqawi was on television," he 
said.

The name on the photo Powell showed to the world was Khurmal, a 
nearby town that is under the control of Islamic Group of Kurdistan.

Islamic Group denies there is such a camp at Khurmal and believes 
Powell's satellite photo evidence misidentified the site's location.

An official at the equivalent of the local social security office 
said the Sargat compound is in the district of Biyare, near the town of 
Biyare where Ansar has its headquarters.

Before taking journalists to Sargat, Islamic Group took them to 
Khurmal to show them the camp was not there.

Group official Fazel Qaradari said he welcomed the large contingent 
of Western media to "see for themselves" that there is no such factory 
in Khurmal.

The road to Sargat passes the ruins of numerous villages destroyed by 
Saddam Hussein in his late 1980s campaign against Iraq's Kurds. Though 
less well-known than nearby Halabja - a city about 19 miles away where 
5,000 Kurds were killed by chemical weapons in 1988, the Sargat area 
also was subjected to chemical weapons bombardment.

In the village of Ahmad Awa, headquarters of the Islamic Group's 
leader, Ali Bapir, residents said they frequently visit Sargat, and 
although they have been denied access to the compound, they do not 
believe there are any chemical weapons or al-Qaida operatives in the 
village.

"We're certain that's wrong," said Azad Muhedil, head of the village 
council. "We have been victims of war and upheaval in the past. The 
people here are still recovering from chemical weapons."


---- INDEX REFERENCES ----

KEY WORDS: AP NATIONAL NEWS

NEWS SUBJECT: Political/General News; English language content; Acts Of Terror; Corporate/Industrial News; State Department; Executive Government; Government Bodies; Domestic Politics; Crime/Courts (GCAT ENGL GTERR CCAT GVSTD GVEXE GVBOD GPOL GCRIM)

STORY ORIGIN: SARGAT, IRAQ

NEWS CATEGORY: INTERNATIONAL

MARKET SECTOR: Consumer Cyclical; Technology (CYC TEC)

INDUSTRY: Consumer Electronics; Home Furnishings & Appliances; Aerospace (CSE HMF ARO)

PRODUCT: African/Middle East News/Features; Defense & Aerospace; Transportation (DAF DDE DTR)

REGION: Iraq; Asian Countries; Western Asian Countries; Middle Eastern Countries; Persian Gulf Countries; Iraq; Middle East (IRAQ ASIAZ WASIAZ MEASTZ GULFSTZ IZ ML)

Word Count: 856
2/8/03 APWIRES 18:11:00
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