While some would rather play political games as cities round the world get terror bombed, here's more background on the connections between Iraq and terrorists...

Scanning press accounts from around Europe, the terrorist group most frequently named, besides al Qaeda, is Ansar al Islam.

In France, according to one press account, authorities "launched a preventive operation . . . targeting highly radical individuals who have visited Syria and Iraq on several occasions." This group was reportedly "in contact with the Ansar al Islam." According to the German press, Ansar al Islam is the "target of Germany-wide police action" and more than several individuals have been arrested for alleged ties to the group.

For those analysts and politicians, particularly in the United States, who cling desperately to the notion that there was "no connection" between Iraq and al Qaeda, Ansar al Islam presents a problem. Typical of this was an article in the July 10, 2005, issue of Time magazine. Written by former Clinton administration counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin, the article presumptuously declared "we know there was no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda."

The evidence, of course, suggests that this analysis is wrong. Even as naysayers in the States continue to deny any connection, such staunchly anti-Iraq War publications as Le Monde have long since conceded the point. One day before the Time article, on July 9, the French daily published a news story that declared Ansar al Islam "was founded in 2001 with the joint help of Saddam Hussein--who intended to use it against moderate Kurds--and al Qaeda, which hoped to find in Kurdistan a new location that would receive its members."