1 of the great fears after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was that, while the international community was readying their diplomatic and military responses to the crisis, the Iraqis would initiate an extended terrorist campaign against citizens and installations of Western countries thruout the world. OTL this threat never materialised, but WI there had been such terrorist incidents conducted by the Iraqi secret service working in conjunction with sympathetic terrorist groups such as radical Palestinian offshoots ? How would the course of the Gulf War have been affected ?
Saddam's terrorism Aug 1990
- Thread starter Melvin Loh
- Start date
I think both Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal were based in Baghdad at the time of the 91 Gulf War, hence the fears of major terrorist attacks once the US started attacking Iraqi forces. US interests (esp. embassies) in Europe and the Middle East would've been the most likely targets. I don't know how such attacks would've affected the course of the war - the US would already have been at war with Iraq, so what extra could they have done?
NapoleonXIV
Banned
With the extra justification, they could have kept on going after retaking Kuwait and unseated Saddam. This could have resulted in a federation of a Kurdish North, a Sunni Center and a Shia South, all 3 generally pro-Western with Modernists in control and thus a counterweight to Iran and Saudi fundamentalists.
Or not?? I'm not all that educated in this area. Is that a plausible scenario?
Or not?? I'm not all that educated in this area. Is that a plausible scenario?
I doubt it would have been possible. The Iraqi secret service doesn't exactly have a good reputation, so I wouldn't trust them with running intelligence operations as complex as orchestrating a terror campaign. (OTOH, they seem to be pretty good at hiding WMDs, no? 
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I also don't think they'll find many willing allies. There will always be someone desperate for ANY excuse to kill people, but by this time the majority of terrorist organisations worth anything were Islamist, and Saddam really only found religion after his invasion of Kuweit. Very few groups of that slant would happily cooperate with a secularist, allegedly Socialist, Arab-nationalist dictator who had just finished massacring Iranians. In theory the PLO might remember its Socialist, pan-Arabist roots, but it's not exactly likely, and anyway, it's not like they still had the infrastructure on the ground back then.
Not to mention that it should have been obvious to anyone that taking Saddam's side in this conflict was a terminally stupid thing to do.
) I also don't think they'll find many willing allies. There will always be someone desperate for ANY excuse to kill people, but by this time the majority of terrorist organisations worth anything were Islamist, and Saddam really only found religion after his invasion of Kuweit. Very few groups of that slant would happily cooperate with a secularist, allegedly Socialist, Arab-nationalist dictator who had just finished massacring Iranians. In theory the PLO might remember its Socialist, pan-Arabist roots, but it's not exactly likely, and anyway, it's not like they still had the infrastructure on the ground back then.
Not to mention that it should have been obvious to anyone that taking Saddam's side in this conflict was a terminally stupid thing to do.