Tonight, Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes, in Baghdad, interviewed Abdul Rahman Said Yasin, one of the FBI Top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists at large.

He has reportedly been a prisoner of Iraq outside Baghdad since 1994. Iraq is evidently trying to use him as a bargaining chip, and as a propaganda tool.

Yasin appeared in the interview in prison pajamas, and handcuffs.

Here is the full story of Yasin, and why Iraq is suddenly trying to divert attention away from its own suspected involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing attack - very strange, since our own government falls short of claiming any evidence for Iraqi involvement or sponsorship in the incident.

The whole story begins in 1992, with an elaborate plot devised by El Sayid Nosair, imprisoned at Attica for the murder of New York Rabbi Meir Kahane. That initial plot was to construct 12 pipe bombs to blow up Jewish targets and his prosecutor and judge, and a local politician, in the Manhattan area.

15 Abdul Rahman Said Yasin ---------------- interviewed in Baghdad by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes on May 23, 2002; fugitive in Baghdad as of 1996; reportedly held in Iraq prison outside Baghdad since 1994; indicted for February 26, 1993 WTC bombing; fled to Amman, Jordan, then to Iraq on March 5, 1993; was released after he led FBI to apartment where 1993 WTC bomb was made; arrested March 4, 1993 in connection with the February 26, 1993 WTC bombing; employee of the Iraqi government
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/f...
An American, Born April 10, 1960 in Bloomington, Indiana, 5'10", 180 pounds. Yasin possibly has a chemical burn scar on his right thigh. Yasin is an epileptic. An Iraqi government employee who was living in Baghdad as of 1996. AEI Press scholar Laurie Mylroie meticulously examined the publicly released evidence, following a 1995 conspiracy trial in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, to piece together the story of Iraqi state sponsorship.

In early 1992, Palestinian fundamentalist Mohammed Salameh was recruited into a New York pipe bomb plot of imprisoned El Sayid Nosair. Planted among the plotters was an Egyptian, Emad Salem, working as an FBI informant, but also an active plotter and agitator. On June 10 1992, Palestinian plotter Mohammed Salameh made the first of forty-six calls to Iraq, the vast majority to his PLO terrorist uncle in Baghdad, number two man in the "Western Sector", a PLO terrorist unit under Iraqi influence. Thus begins the Iraqi connection. Key preparatory steps to the World Trade Center bombing were taken within days of Salameh's first call-including steps taken in Baghdad.

On June 21, 1992 the now-fugitive American-born Iraqi government employee living in Baghdad, Abdul Rahman Yasin (subsequently an indicted fugitive in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) appeared at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Jordan asking for a U.S. passport. Born in America, Abdul Rahman Yasin received his passport, which he soon used to travel to the United States. Just at this crucial point, unfortunately, the FBI lost track of the Nosair-Salameh conspiracy. It had severed relations with its informant, Emad Salem, in early July 1992.

But Abdul Rahman Yasin's older Iraqi brother, Musab Yasin, lived in the same Jersey City building as Mohammad Salameh, the Palestinian who had first called his uncle in Iraq just days before Abdul Rahman sought his own passport to America. After September 1, 1992, the1993 WTC bombing mastermind, Abdul Basit Karim, travelling under the name of Ramzi Yousef, came to stay at the apartment of Musab Yasin in Jersey City. So too did Abdul Rahman Yasin, Musab's younger brother, who arrived in America from Iraq in September 1992, soon after Ramzi Yousef. Many young Arab men used the two Yasin and Salameh apartments, praying and eating together; relations were so close that the apartments were connected by an intercom.

On the morning of February 26, 1993 shortly after noon, the WTC bomb went off, on--let it be well noted--the second anniversary of the ending of the Gulf War. Salameh was arrested on March 4, 1993. Salameh had used Musab Yasin's phone number when renting the van, and Abdul Rahman Yasin was picked up the same day in a sweep of sites associated with Salameh. Abdul Rahman was taken to New Jersey FBI headquarters in Newark. He is reported to have been extremely cool, as a trained intelligence agent would be. He was helpful to investigators who themselves faced tremendous pressure to produce answers. He told them, for instance, the location of the apartment that was used to make the bomb, a key bit of information. They thanked him for his cooperation and let him walk out. This, although he had arrived just six months before from Iraq, and might well attempt to return there. And indeed, the very next day, Abdul Rahman Yasin boarded Royal Jordanian flight 262 to Amman, Jordan, the same plane Salameh had failed to catch a week earlier. From Amman, Abdul Rahman Yasin went on to Baghdad. An ABC news stringer saw him there in 1994, outside his father's house, and learned from neighbors that he worked for the Iraqi government.

Meanwhile, as U.S. authorities searched for Abdul Rahman Yasin in March 1993, after his "helpful" session with the FBI and before they knew for certain that he had fled, an FBI agent who had worked with Emad Salem in June 1992 speculated to Salem: "Do you ever think that Iraqi intelligence might have known of these people who were willing to do something crazy, and that Iraqi intelligence found them out and encouraged them to do this as a retaliation for the bombing of Iraq. . . . So the people who are left holding the bag here in America are Egyptian. . . or Palestinian. . . . But the other people we are looking for, Abdul Rahman, he is gone. . I hate to think what's going to happen if this guy turns out to be. . an Iraqi intelligence operative...and these people were used." That, indeed, is the most straightforward explanation of the World Trade Center bombing: that it was an Iraqi intelligence operation, led by Ramzi Yousef, with the local Egyptian and Palestinian fundamentalists serving first as aides and then as diversionary dupes.

On May 23, 2002 Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes interviewed Yasin, who appeared in prison pajamas and handcuffs. It was claimed that Iraq had held Yasin prisoner on the outskirts of Baghdad since 1994. Stahl fingerprinted Yasin, for later FBI confirmation of identity. Kevin Pollock of the State Department stated that there was no CIA info tying Iraq into the 1993 WTC bombing. Tariq Aziz, spokesman of Iraq, claimed that in the 1990's, Iraq twice offered to turn over Yasin to the US, through Egypt, but that the US did not respond. Aziz claimed that all Iraq wanted in return was a signed statement that Iraq had handed over Yasin. But reportedly the statement presented to the US at the time contained lengthy wording essentially exonerating Iraqi involvement in the 1993 WTC attack.
(www.fbi.gov)
AKA: Abdul Rahman Said Yasin, Aboud Yasin, Abdul Rahman S. Taha, Abdul Rahman S. Taher DETAILS: Abdul Rahman Yasin is wanted for his alleged participation in the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, New York City, on February 26, 1993, which resulted in six deaths, the wounding of numerous individuals, and the significant destruction of property and commerce. REWARD: $25 million.