Fighting Terrorism

The picture seen through captured documents

Documents captured in Ramallah ¹ shed light on the Iraqi policy to encourage violence and terrorism in the Palestinian Authority (PA)-administered territories, with an emphasis on Suicide bombing attacks heavily motivated by money . Financial leverage was regarded by Saddam Hussein as the best way to advance Iraqi interests in the PA-administered territories . He openly and repeatedly praised the Palestinian suicide bombers and encouraged the continuation of the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation. ²

The captured documents revealed how funds from Iraq reached the relatives of shaheeds ³ and the wounded as well as how they were distributed .

• Money-transfer system: while the documents did not specifically detail the system, they indicated that the Iraqis used various methods, including bank transfers , couriers who smuggled cash, money changers and international forwarding companies (including Western Union ). The Palestine Investment Bank played a central role in implementing bank transfers.

• The Iraqi funds were deposited in accounts, apparently in Ramallah . One of the documents found was a bank statement belonging to Rakad Salem , the secretary of the Arab Liberation Front (ALF) at the Cairo-Amman Bank (an agent forWestern Union in Jordan and the PA-administered territories). Among them was a handwritten document addressed to Baghdad and dealing with the deposit of funds in “Account Number 1,” in Israeli assessment Rakad Salem's account in the Palestine Investment Bank's main branch in Al-Bireh . ⁴ Regular deposits began to be made in October 2000, when the current ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation broke out, and continued until 2002. Monthly and sometimes semi-monthly deposits were made, and on occasion money was deposited three times a month.

• The funds received from Iraq were transferred to the ALF and Ba'ath party leadership in Ramallah according to the data regarding shaheeds and wounded collected the ALF and Ba'ath party. Rakard Salem (Abu Mahmoud) , ALF and Ba'ath party secretary in the PA-administered territories personally supervised the collation of data and distribution of funds; he was tried by Israel and is currently in prison. Salem was a key figure in the Iraqi money-transfer system and his signature is on almost all the checks found (for the main findings of the investigation, see below.)

• Rakad Salem transferred funds from “Account Number 1” in Ramallah to secondary accounts in banks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip , accounts supervised by the ALF and Ba'ath party. Checks were drawn on those accounts to various beneficiaries, and while the money was usually given directly to the beneficiaries, sometimes the checks were deposited directly into their accounts.

• The Palestine Investment Bank holds a prominent place in the ALF's transfer of funds to beneficiaries. The main branch is in Al-Bireh and it has local branches in Ramallah, Bethlehem , Nablus , Hebron and Gaza . The captured documents included photocopies of a large number of checks transferred by the bank to the relatives or representatives of shaheeds and the wounded Palestinians. Insofar as can be determined, other banks were involved, such as the Cairo-Amman Bank in Jordan and the Arab Bank branch in Jenin, although according to the documents, their part in transferring the funds was secondary .

• Relatives or representatives of shaheeds or wounded Palestinian terrorists received the funds from local ALF and Ba'ath representatives. The beneficiaries signed a receipt for a “shaheed grant” (or a “wounded individual's grant”) from “the fighting president, Saddam Hussein,” at ALF or the Palestinian Ba'ath party headquarters in the PA-administered territories. The receipt noted the amount, the name of the person in whose honor it was given, the name of the person who received the funds and the degree of his relationship to the shaheed or wounded Palestinian, his signature and the date.

As previously mentioned, Iraqi activity in the PA-administered territories was organized and controlled in Ramallah by Rakad Mahmoud Salameh Salem (Abu Mahmoud). Salem holds Iraqi citizenship and served as the ALF's general secretary in the PA-administered territories and as the secretary of the Palestinian office of the Iraqi Ba'ath party. Until the war in Lebanon (1982) he commanded the ALF's military wing in Lebanon and was also the ALF's deputy chairman and chairman. In 1996 he moved to the West Bank and lived in Bir Zeit (near Ramallah).

Rakad Salem, as previously noted, was arrested by Israeli security forces, interrogated and tried. During his interrogation he was asked how funds were transferred from Iraq to the PA-administered territories. The following is a summary of what he revealed, some of it was new information which completed that learned from the documents captured:

According to Salem , at the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001 he was instructed from Baghdad by Abu Ahmad al-Hussein al-Ghayri , the representative of the Pan-Arab Command of the Ba'ath party, to transfer grants of $10,000 to the families of shaheeds ⁵ and $1,000 to those of wounded Palestinians. The funds were going to be deposited in the Ramallah branch of the Palestine Investment Bank . Salem was instructed to open an account there for the purpose of receiving the money . He received telephone notification of the transfers; nothing was written. In his own estimation, between the outbreak of the current hostilities and time of his arrest he received and distributed about $15 million of Iraqi money.

Salem reported that he was in constant contact with ‘Ali Samara'i of the Palestinian Office of Ba'ath party headquarters in Baghdad [according to several documents, the senior figure operating the ALF and Ba'ath party in the PA-administered territories was Taha Yassin Ramadan , Saddam Hussein's deputy].

Salem also reported that the frequency of his contacts with Baghdad depended on the situation, and that he was usually in contact with them once a week and sometimes twice. The money was sent from Iraq according to necessity. When it ran out Salem would contact ‘Ali Samara'i and tell him he needed more. Within a week to 10 days he would receive additional funds.

Salem noted that the funds allotted to the PA-administered ⁶ territories by Saddam Hussein were transferred from the head office of an Iraqi bank called Al-Rafidain to the bank's branch in Amman . From there it went to the Palestine Investment Bank's Amman branch and whence it was forwarded to Rakad Salem's account in the Al-Bireh branch of the Palestine Investment Bank (See below).

Al-Rifidain Bank's head office

Appendix