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Web site: Al-Qaeda aiding Iraq militants

The top al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia said Osama bin Laden's group was aiding Muslim militants fighting to expel US forces from Iraq, according to a statement posted on Islamist Web sites yesterday.

"In our jihad in the Arabian peninsula, we are serving the Iraqi cause and helping the mujahidin there who we are in constant contact with and are supporting," said the statement, attributed to Abdulaziz al-Muqrin.

"We seek to confuse the enemy, keep it occupied in its rear bases and foil its future plans along with its Arab allies and despots."

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, which said Muslim militants had laid low in Kurdistan for a long time and "could not achieve what they are achieving now."

It was referring to the militant group Ansar al-Islam, which held a swath of territory near the mountainous border between northern Iraq and Iran before being scattered by US and Kurdish troops in last year's Iraq war.

The area had been beyond the control of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.

After that war, the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq became autonomous areas.
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