Hijazi served as Hussein's Director of External Operations for the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service for many years before becoming Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
In February 1999, former CIA counter-terrorism official Vincent Cannistraro claimed that Farouk Hijazi had invited Osama bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Later, in 2003, Cannistraro claimed that bin Laden had rejected Hijazi's overtures, concluding that he did not want to be "exploited" by Iraq's secular regime.
Spies frequently make contact with rogue groups to size up their intentions, gauge their strength, or try to infiltrate their ranks, they said."
The talks are thought to have ended disastrously for the Iraqis, as bin Laden rejected any kind of alliance, preferring to pursue his own policy of global jihad, or holy war.