The papers show that Iraq's charge d'affaires in Nairobi, Fallah Hassan al-Rubdie, was in discussion with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan guerrilla group linked to other anti-Western Islamist groups, The Daily Telegraph said.

In a letter to the head of the Iraqi spy agency, uncovered in the Iraqi intelligence service's headquarters in Baghdad, a senior ADF operative outlined his group's efforts to set up an "international mujahideen group," the newspaper said.

Its mission "will be to smuggle arms on a global scale to holy warriors fighting against US, British and Israeli influences in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Far East," the letter said, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The letter, dated April 2001, was signed: "Your Brother, Bekkah Abdul Nassir, Chief of Diplomacy ADF Forces," the newspaper said.

Nassir offered to "vet, recruit and send youth to train for the jihad," at a centre in Baghdad, which he described as a "headquarters for international holy warrior network," the newspaper said.

"We should not allow the enemy to focus on Afghanistan and Iraq, but we should attack their international criminal forces inside every base," the letter said, according to the same source.

The ADF emerged in 1996, when it launched a rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni's government.

In December 2001, the movement was placed on the US list of terrorist organisations.

SPACE.WIRE