U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to find evidence of a rumored connection between an Iraqi intelligence agent and Mohamed Atta, the alleged leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 6).

Advocates of a U.S. military campaign against Iraq have pointed to the alleged connection as evidence of Iraqi involvement with al-Qaeda, according to the Post.  In November, Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman told U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that Atta had visited Prague to meet with suspected Iraqi intelligence agent Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani.

U.S. and Czech officials suspected that Atta and al-Ani had planned to attack Radio Free Iraq in Prague, which broadcasts programs critical of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to the Post.  Surveillance cameras apparently detected al-Ani surveying the radio facility in April 2001, and a Middle East informant later told Czech intelligence that he had seen Atta meeting with al-Ani around the same time.

FBI and CIA analysts, however, said after investigating thousands of travel documents, they found no evidence that Atta “left or returned to the U.S.” during the time he was supposedly in Prague, a senior administration official said.

Czech authorities also said that months of investigating the potential link never proved Atta met al-Ani.  A different man might have met the Iraqi, they said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, May 1).

According to a March report in the New Yorker (see GSN, March 19), Kurdish sources have said Iraq and al-Qaeda have direct links (Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, March 25).

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