Families of Sept 11 victims file $1tr lawsuit against Saddam

The families of September 11 victims have launched a $1tr lawsuit against Saddam Hussein.

The suit claims Iraq knew Osama bin Laden was targeting the World Trade Centre and Pentagon before September 11.

It also alleges Saddam Hussein encouraged terrorists because he wanted revenge for losing the Gulf War.

The New York Post says the action was filed in Manhattan federal court on behalf of 1,400 victims of the terror attacks and their families.

It names bin Laden, his al-Qaida organisation and Iraq as defendants. Court documents filed in the suit say Saddam knew bin Laden was plotting to strike high-profile US targets at least six weeks before they happened.

The paper says the suit cites an Iraqi newspaper columnist, who wrote on July 21, 2001, that bin Laden was thinking with the "seriousness of the Bedouin in the desert" about bombing the Pentagon and the White House.

The author of the article, Naeem Abd Muhalhal, has allegedly been connected with Iraqi intelligence since the early 1980s.

Muhalhal wrote bin Laden was "insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting", a possible reference to the 1993 WTC attack.

The column, published in a newspaper based outside Baghdad, also says bin Laden curses "the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs". This is said to be a reference to Sinatra's classic "New York, New York."

Saddam later congratulated the author for his "documentation of important events," according to Kreindler & Kreindler, a the law firm which filed the suit.