We aided the war on al-Qa'ida, says Iraq

Iraq has accused the United States of spreading false propaganda by claiming Baghdad has links with al-Qa'ida, despite knowing that Saddam Hussein is helping in the fight against the Islamists.

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, claimed that al-Qa'ida was given refuge in northern Iraq after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, said in Baghdad that his country had given arms and ammunition to Kurds who were attacked by al-Qa'ida.

Mr Aziz, who is Christian, insisted that the secular Iraqi government has always been against Islamists. He said that members of al-Qa'ida had attacked forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talibani, and the Kurds had then sought help from Baghdad.

"We gave Talibani weapons and ammunition, we helped as much as we could," said Mr Aziz. "We are not allowed of course to go into what is called the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan physically, but the help we gave helped Talibani in his fight for it.

"Talibani was among the opposition leaders who went to Washington and spoke to Dick Cheney [US Vice-President] and Rumsfeld. He told them what had happened, so they must know."

Fighters of Ansar al-Islam, said by the PUK to be linked to al-Qa'ida, were reported last month to have taken control of villages in a remote mountainous area of eastern Kurdistan on the border with Iran. There were also reports that the group was testing the effects of poison gas on farm animals.

Mr Talibani maintains contact with Baghdad, and has co-operated on a number of occasions. He has held talks with the leader of the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party, Massoud Barzani, but both the leaders have said that they do not want to dismember Iraq.

Mr Aziz said: "We never even recognised the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. We had diplomatic relations with previous governments but not since the Taliban took over."

The Bush administration has been trying to find a "smoking gun" linking al-Qa'ida and President Saddam's regime to justify a war on Iraq.

After 11 September, there were reports in America that Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker in the attacks, met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. But the reports have since been discounted and no evidence has been found to link Iraq and al-Qa'ida.