The agenda and political faith of Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat, Osama bin Laden, Hamas and the rest of the international Islamic terrorists can be traced back to World War II and two key figures, Adolf Hitler and Amin al-Husseini, known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Much has been written about the Mufti, all well-documented, including chapters by such prominent authors as Connor Cruise O’Brien, former Irish ambassador to the U.N. Mountains of documented evidence is out there and available to anyone who cares to look.

The Nuremberg and Eichmann trials revealed that Nazi official Adolf Eichmann met with the British-appointed Mufti in Palestine in 1937. Following this meeting, the Mufti would become essentially an agent of Nazi Germany charged with the funding and organizing of pro-Nazi organizations in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Iraq.

In 1941, along with Rashid Ali and Khairallah Tulfah, Saddam Hussein’s uncle, guardian and later father-in-law, the Mufti instigated a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq with Nazi-supplied weapons and aircraft. After the coup failed, the Mufti fled to Berlin, where he would hold his first of several meetings with Adolf Hitler.

At this meeting the Mufti was reported to have dissuaded Hitler from considering the deportation of the Jews to Palestine. Instead, the Mufti advocated and even possibly suggested what came to be known as the final solution against the Jews. In 1942, the Mufti would intervene and stop the Nazis from exchanging 10,000 Jewish children for Nazi POWs.

The Mufti’s activities in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe would set the stage for today’s Islamic terrorism. On April 25, 1941, the Nazis sent the Mufti to Nazi-occupied Bosnia, where he assumed the title “Protector of Islam.”

On Feb. 10, 1943, Hitler ordered the creation of the Nazi SS Division Hanzar and approximately 100,000 Bosnian Muslims volunteered. The Mufti, serving as chief administrator, referred to these Nazi-Muslim brigades as “the cream of Islam.”

The Hanzars, deriving their name from the type of dagger carried by Ottoman officers, played an active role in the extermination of Christians and Jews in the Balkans. The Mufti attempted to implement the Nazi “Pejani Plan,” which called for the extermination of the Christian Serbs and which the Nazis eventually abandoned.

All in all, the Bosnian Muslim Hanzars assisted in the extermination of approximately 200,000 Christian Serbs, 40,000 Gypsies and 22,000 Jews.

In 1943, Hitler appointed the Mufti as head of a Nazi-Muslim government in exile. From his headquarters in Berlin, a confiscated Jewish mansion, the Mufti laid out plans for a concentration camp for Jews near Nablus in Palestine modeled after Auschwitz. Photos exist of the Mufti touring Auschwitz with Heinrich Himmler.

Nazi attitudes regarding Islam were perhaps best expressed by Himmler, who is reported to have stated: “I have nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this division for me and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action. A very practical and attractive religion for soldiers.”

Deriving financial support from a fund of confiscated Jewish money known as the Sonderfund, the Mufti was installed as head of the Nazi-created Islamic Institute (Islamische Zentralinstitut) in Dresden, where he would begin the process of educating future Islamic leaders in Nazi ideology.

To spur them on to victory, the Mufti delivered a speech in Berlin on March 1, 1944, to an audience of Hanzar troops in which he said: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases god, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.”

On that day, future Islamic terrorists received their marching orders.

Chuck Morse is a radio talk show host at WROL in Boston (http://www.chuckmorse.com). E-mail Chuck at chuckm@chuckmorse.com.