The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened during an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 attacks.
"I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to head Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat.
He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Baghdad. Krekar told the daily the United States had approached him before September 11.
"I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said. (Albawaba.com)