[Mb-civic] FW: RFE: WHAT IS AL-QAEDA MANAGEMENT DOING IN IRAN? (INTERESTING !!!)

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From: Shahla Samii <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:49:03 -0500
Subject: RFE: WHAT IS AL-QAEDA MANAGEMENT DOING IN IRAN? (INTERESTING !!!)



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>
>
> RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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> RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 225, Part III, 2 December 2004
>
> END NOTE
>
> WHAT IS AL-QAEDA MANAGEMENT DOING IN IRAN?
>
> By Sharon Chadha
>
>     "No Al-Qaeda leaders are in Iran," Iranian Deputy Interior
> Minister Ali Asqar Ahmadi said at a 28 September news conference in
> Tehran. "Iran has never permitted the transit of terrorists to Iraq
> or any other country from its own territory," he added.
>     Although Tehran has repeatedly issued such denials, two
> separate Iranian officials confirmed in 2003 and early 2004 that
> Iranian authorities are holding Al-Qaeda members in custody, and that
> they will be brought to trial as they constitute a threat to Iran's
> national security, ONASA news agency reported on 15 February 2004.
> But to date, no such trial is known to have taken place.
>     Reports nonetheless persist that hundreds of Al-Qaeda
> operatives along with some 18 senior leaders -- including Saif Adel,
> Al-Qaeda's military commander, and Osama Bin Laden's son, Saad, are
> living in Iran. Spain's top counterterrorism judge has dubbed this
> Al-Qaeda's "board of managers," according to the 1 August "Los
> Angeles Times." A French counterterrorism official says that these
> leaders have "controlled freedom of movement" inside Iran, AFP
> reported on 15 July, and the London-based Arabic daily "Al-Sharq
> al-Awsat" reports that some are even living in villas near the
> Caspian Sea coast town of Chalus, AFP reported on 28 June. Other
> accounts of their activities are far more disturbing. U.S.
> communications intercepts indicate that the 12 May 2003 attacks on
> the expatriate compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were orchestrated
> from Iran, according to the 1 August "Los Angeles Times," and though
> others may be involved, European government officials reportedly
> point to Adel as the primary suspect.
>     Moreover, French government officials are reported to suspect
> that the Al-Qaeda leadership based in Iran played a role in the
> suicide bombings that targeted Western and Jewish interests in
> Casablanca, Morocco, that occurred four days after the Riyadh attacks
> and resulted in the death of 33 civilians as well as 12 suicide
> bombers
>     Al-Qaeda members in Iran are also said to have funded the
> Istanbul bombings in November 2003, in which two synagogues, the
> British Consulate, and a London-based bank were bombed and 63 people
> were killed, according to court testimony provided by Adnan Ersoz,
> one of 69 charged in connection with these incidents, AFP reported on
> 13 September.
>     Spanish investigators believe that even the 11 March commuter
> train bombings in Madrid were at least partially planned from the
> Al-Qaeda base in Iran.  Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, named by Spanish
> police as a primary suspect, is suspected of having operated from
> Iran, as is another suspect, Amer Azizi, who is believed to have
> spent time in Iran before returning to Spain to carry out the
> attacks, according to Spanish communications intercepts cited in the
> "Los Angeles Times."
>     These intercepts indicate that Azizi met with
> then-Al-Qaeda-affiliate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist
> believed to be behind various assassinations, car bombings, and
> beheadings in Iraq.  It is widely reported that he too has used Iran
> as his base of operations, where he was able to extend his reach as
> far as Europe, and where he remains the primary suspect in terror
> plots involving chemical and biological weapons attacks on targets in
> Europe that were foiled in 2002 and 2003, according to law
> enforcement authorities in London and Paris cited by the "Los Angeles
> Times."
>     U.S. government officials are said to believe that al-Zarqawi
> had more contact with the Iranian government than he ever did with
> former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to "Newsweek" of 25
> October. Although some U.S. analysts remain skeptical of the notion
> that al-Zarqawi could have established a close relationship with the
> Shi'ite regime given his alleged hostility toward Shi'ites in
> general, Jordanian intelligence have corroborated the existence of
> such links, the weekly reported.
>     That al-Zarqawi was indeed allowed to operate from Iran was
> confirmed by a commander of the elite Al-Quds unit of Iran's Islamic
> Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), General Qasem Suleimani, who
> reportedly said that the IRGC provided assistance and refuge to
> al-Zarqawi in order to prevent the establishment of a pro-U.S. regime
> in Iraq, according to "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" on 11 August. The general's
> remarks contrast with the official position of the Iranian
> government, which is that it has "no affinity" with Al-Qaeda and has
> from time to time arrested and extradited various Al-Qaeda suspects
> to their home countries.
>     In August, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry foiled a series
> of assassinations allegedly being planned by Al-Qaeda's Adel along
> with a high-ranking leader of the IRGC, "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" reported
> on 19 August. The plot, which was revealed in recorded telephone
> calls, targeted U.S. military, CIA, and FBI personnel in the former
> Soviet Republics that neighbor Iran. According to the Arabic daily's
> source, the plot was apparently conceived in order to force a
> confrontation with both the United States and Iran's northerly
> neighbors -- Armenia, Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave, and
> Turkmenistan -- and it furthermore shows the deep divisions between
> the hard-line and reformist factions in determining Iranian foreign
> policy.
>     Many Iran experts are not surprised that the IRGC might
> provide assistance and refuge to Al-Qaeda members at the same time
> that other elements of the Iranian government, such as the
> Intelligence Ministry, are arresting and extraditing Al-Qaeda
> suspects. Many experts believe the IRGC operates beyond the control
> of elected politicians in Tehran and answers only to the hard core of
> the unelected clerical elite. As a top French law enforcement
> official told the "Los Angeles Times": "Iranians play a double game.
> It is a classic Iranian style of ambiguity, deception, manipulation.
> Everything they can do to trouble the Americans, without going too
> far, they do it. They have arrested important Al-Qaeda people, but
> they have permitted other important Al-Qaeda people to operate."
>
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