US-led occupation brings frontline against al-Qaeda to Iraq: analysts

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030907/ts_afp/us_attacks_2years_iraq&cid=1503&ncid=1480

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The United States struggled before the war to convince the world there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda network, but five months of US-led occupation of Iraq may have created precisely such an unholy alliance. snip

But Hiltermann insisted that Washington's pre-war claims of ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda still remained entirely unconvincing.

"I see no information that links al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's people before the war, and the Americans never provided any hard evidence, so it is an alliance that postdates the war, not predates it," he said.

"I find it quite plausible that with the Americans having made such a big target of themselves in Iraq, an alliance should come into existence now purely on opportunistic grounds," he said.

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