“On October 26, 1988, a [Muslim] Brother named Hashim ‘Abassi was rounded up in the so-called Autumn Leaves arrests in Neuss, Germany. ‘Abassi was part of a cell of Islamic militants that included his brother-in-law and the group’s leader, Muhammad Hafiz Dalkimoni, who were planning to blow up five civilian jetliners. Although ‘Abassi and most […]
10/18/1988
The resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan helped the popularity of George H.W. Bush during his presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis in 1988. “On October 18, 1988, Bush stopped at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, at the site of Winston Churchill’s 1946 historic speech warning that an ‘Iron Curtain’ of communism was descending across […]
10/15/1988
“In the United States the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dispatched two staff members, Peter Galbraith and Christopher Van Hollen, to look at the situation in Kurdistan. When they reported back in October 1988 that Iraq was using chemical weapons as part of a policy to depopulate the region, the U.S. Congress responded by calling for […]
10/15/1988
“In a confession after his October 1988 arrest in Egypt, [Khalid Dahab, protege of al Qaeda member/FBI operative Ali Mohamed in California] admitted that he’d helped his namesake [Ali Mohamed] recruit up to ten al Qaeda sleeper operatives to be stationed in the United States to execute future acts of terror.” [The 15th of the […]
10/15/1988
In October 1988, U.S. Special Envoy to the Afghan resistance Edmund McWilliams wrote a classified cable in reference to U.S. support for Pakistani and Saudi intelligence, titled, ” ‘ISI [Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence], [Afghan Islamist guerrilla leader] Gulbuddin [Hekmatyar] and Afghan Self-Determination.’ ‘THERE IS A GROWING FRUSTRATION, BORDERING ON HOSTILITY, AMONG AFGHANS ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL SPECTRUM […]
9/29/1988
“According to the Riegle Report, [on September 29, 1988] the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) sent a shipment of Anthrax and a source of Botulism to the Iraqi Ministry of Trade (a pathogen produces disease): ‘Materials Shipped: Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 240) Batch# 05-14-63 (3 each) Class III pathogen Materials shipped: Clostridium botulinum Type A Batch# […]
9/10/1988
“The minutes of al-Qaeda’s founding meetings did not mention the United States as an enemy but rather described the group’s goals in the broadest and vaguest of terms: ‘to lift the word of God, to make His religion victorious.’ The minutes did note that the ‘work’ of al-Qaeda commenced on September 10, 1988.” – Peter […]
9/10/1988
According to the minutes of al Qaeda’s secretary, ” ‘Work of al-Qaeda commenced on 9/10/1988 with a group of fifteen brothers.’ ” – Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, Page 153 […]
9/7/1988
In The Iraq War Reader, Murray Waas wrote: “In the first week of September [1988], Iraqi Minister of State Saadoun Hammadi, a member of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, came to Washington to meet with Secretary of State Shultz. The State Department, uncharacteristically, condemned the use of gas. ‘The Secretary today conveyed to Iraqi Minister of […]
8/29/1988
The Anfal operations were a genocidal movement by the Iraqi regime against Kurds, which began in February 1988. “The entire civilian population of Kurdistan was in one way or another affected. Nearly one-and-a-half million people were displaced, and half the landmass of Kurdistan was depopulated. The savagery of the assaults on innocent civilians was unprecedented. […]