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Now from the Blogosphere ( Regnum Crucis ) :

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Ciceronian Affairs

The German political magazine Cicero is one that I've noted before (and apparently the BKA information contained in the article was accurate, as its publication prompted a raid on the Potsdam magazine's offices) with respect to its coverage of Iranian support for al-Qaeda.

The original article can be accessed in its original German here, but these appear to be the passages that raised the alarm of the German authorities:

How far he left Bin Ladin's shadow behind is proven by numerous files and dossiers put together both by Western and Middle East secret services as well as information and documents compiled by German security authorities. They do not only show the career of headhunter Al-Zarqawi, but also that his career in the name of Allah could only take place because God's killers were supplied with logistical support, money, and weapons by state organizations in a number of Middle Eastern states. Top of the list of Al-Zarqawi's sponsors: the Islamic Republic of Iran and the hardliners from the group
around the Al-Quds Brigades of the Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran. It is Germany's Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA), of all places, that has confirmed that Iran "provided Al-Zarqawi with logistical support on the part of the state." According to BKA files, Iran used to be "an important logistical basis."

The BKA files list nine other passports and identity cards from Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, and Yemen that Al-Zarqawi undoubtedly used to travel over the past three years. His radius of action covers Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, the Pankisi Valley in Georgia, and the northern Caucasus. In these countries Al-Zarqawi is not only able to draw on an army of sympathizers of the Holy War, that is, members of rather diverse Islamist networks who are
at his disposal when necessary, he also has his own cells of active Holy Warriors in this semicircle across borders: in North Africa, Spain, France, and Italy, as well as in Germany: German security authorities suspect that at least 150 of his followers live, above all, in Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Berlin. His network is attached to radical mosques
such as the Al-Nur Mosque in the Berlin district of Neukoelln or the Multicultural Centre in Neu-Ulm. These are radical jihadists for whom Al-Zarqawi's ideology according to which "the jihad can only be fought successfully by resorting to terrorism" is the sole yardstick of their actions.

The BKA has described and analyzed the career of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and the ramifications of his global network in a 125-page report dated 6 September 2004. Each page is stamped "VS -- for official use only, not to be used in court, reference file only." No wonder: not all of the findings can be used in preliminary proceedings in Germany. Not all of the sources on which the compendium is based have the reputation of strictly following the rules of the law when carrying out investigations. A total of 392 footnotes present data, sources, and facts with determination. Business trips of German investigators to Rabat in Morocco, Amman in Jordan, to France, and Italy, reports on findings put together by the German intelligence service (BND), the FBI, the CIA, and recurring briefings of French and Israeli offices outline the career of Al-Khalayleh al-Zarqawi and the growth of his international "Network of Arab Mujahidin."

"In our view, Al-Zarqawi must be seen as the leader of an independent terrorist network working autonomously," the German analysis says.

And:

After the war in Afghanistan, Al-Zarqawi sets up new camps and safe houses
in Zahedan, Isfahan, and Tehran. His European followers come to Tehran, bringing with them money and new passport identities and collecting instructions. Communication is handled through middlemen and by phone. The German BND listens in: it has tapped Al-Zarqawi's Swiss satellite telephone with the number 0041-793686306 and his Iranian cell phones with the numbers 0098-9135153994 and 0098-218757638.

Supported by radical groups within the secret service of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Al-Zarqawi may safely use the landline number 0098-9112311436. In Isfahan, he uses a telephone with the number 0098-9112399346, which is registered under the name of Ahmad Abdul Salam, Bahar Street, Block No. 27, Kukak Area, Asfahan, Iran. In urgent cases, his
followers can reach him under his fax No. 0098-218757638. German security authorities confirm on the quiet what their Jordanian colleagues also see as the reason of why Al-Zarqawi was, and is, as a Jordanian investigator adds, so successful: "The fact that the two sides hate one another for religious reasons has never prevented them from cooperating very closely."

And:

When German investigators arrested Lokman M. in Munich in 2003, they found out that he had established a virtual travel agency for trips to Iraq and back. "This is a rat line of which we only know that it exists," a German BND officer groans. "We have no idea of its course and where it goes and who else is involved in the organization. Yet at one point, we will have the Big Bang [previous two words published in English] right here in Europe, and it will all be Al-Zarqawi's doings." It is an admission of impotence behind which is sheer horror -- that there is something in all the rumors, clues, and meager evidence and that Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi will finally manage to carry out his chemical mega attack.

How far Al-Zarqawi's experiments have really progressed to carry out terrorist attacks using chemical warfare agents in Europe is something the European services do not know exactly. "All we know is that he is working on it," one secret service official says. Investigators suspect that one center of Al-Zarqawi's efforts to produce and distribute chemical warfare agents is situated in the northern Caucasus and in Georgia today. "Georgia, as a rule, is mentioned in the same breath with suspected activities to produce
poisons," the BKA investigators write in their documentation, listing the names of those involved: "The main activist is said to have been Adnan Sadiq Muhammad Abu Injila, alias Abu Atiya, who is said to have carried out experiments with cyanide and ricin in the Pankisi Valley in Georgia to produce contact poison. Abu Atiya is said to have graduated from the camp in Herat and to be a confidante of Al-Zarqawi." According to intelligence
service findings, Al-Zarqawi's loyal follower Abu Atiya is assumed to have "organized and coordinated the dispatch of toxic material." Ricin and cyanide were intended to be used, among others, in a terrorist attack in Britain.

Abu Atiya is also said to have assigned terrorists to carry out attacks in Europe. The BKA has named witnesses: Rashi Zuhayr, one of Al-Zarqawi's Holy Warriors. "He was arrested when he tried to cross a border holding forged identity papers. When questioned, Rashi admitted to have been asked by Abu Atiya to spy out targets in the United Kingdom for attacks involving poison and conventional weapons together with other persons. The information gained from Rashi led to further arrests, enabling the authorities to avert a major
terrorist threat in the United Kingdom." The European investigators, who try to get onto Al-Zarqawi's network and his chemical terror plans, feel like "poking about in a fog. Sometimes, we catch someone more or less accidentally, giving us bits of information. And then we often do not know for a long time whether they are any good," one investigator grumbles. In the case of Al-Zarqawi's chemical attack plans in Britain, the investigators
were lucky. The information they had been given by Rashi Zuhayr coincided with that given earlier by another detainee. He is number three in the Al-Qa'ida hierarchy: Abu Zubaydah, who has been detained by the United States since 2002 and been interrogated in custody. BKA investigators say that the information delivered was really explosive. "It also confirms the information supplied by Abu Zubaydah that Al-Zarqawi and his network planned to carry out poison attacks in the United Kingdom. A large number of the people who are in contact with Rashi in Europe is said to come from North Africa, therefore finding it easy to enter neighboring countries," the BKA investigators wrote.

That would appear to coincide with what Powell said at the UN about the size and scope of the Zarqawi network. Nice to see that the BKA seems to have gotten around to verifying it and doesn't appear to be using the same kinds of ideological blinders applied here as far as some of our own spooks are concerned.

Here's excerpts from today's article in Cicero by the same author, which you can find summarized by AFP here.

Dass nach Ahmadineschads Amtsantritt Realität wird, was bisher nur angedroht wurde, befürchten nun die europäischen Verhandlungspartner Irans. Zumal ihre Geheimdienste über alarmierende Erkenntnisse verfügen. „Für Ahmadineschad ist die Terrordrohung keine diplomatische Fingerübung. Der glaubt an die ‚Reinheit‘ der islamistischen Revolution und setzt um, was er androht“, stellt ein westlicher Geheimdienst fest.

Tatsächlich bietet der Geheimdienst der Revolutionären Garden der Führungsspitze von Al Qaida seit Jahren sicheren Unterschlupf, logistische Unterstützung, militärisches Training sowie Ausrüstung. „Die Tatsache, dass sunnitische Dschihadisten und Schiiten einander hassen, ist für beide kein Grund, nicht zu kooperieren. Sie haben einen gemeinsamen Feind“, wissen westliche Geheimdienste.

Der Autor dieses Artikels konnte eine Liste der Killer Gottes, die in Iran einen sicheren Hort gefunden haben, einsehen. Die Liste liest sich wie das Who’s Who des globalen Dschihads. Knapp 25 hochrangige Führungskader von Al Qaida – Planer, Organisatoren und Ideologen des Dschihads aus Ägypten, Usbekistan, Saudi-Arabien, Nordafrika sowie aus Europa. Ganz oben in der Al-Qaida-Hierachie: drei der Söhne von Osama bin Laden, Saeed, Mohammad und Othman.

Al-Qaida-Sprecher Abu Ghaib genießt ebenso iranischen Schutz wie Abu Dagana al Alemani (genannt: der Deutsche), der aus Iran heraus die Zusammenarbeit der unterschiedlichen dschihadistischen Netzwerke in aller Welt koordiniert. Sie leben in sicheren Häusern der Revolutionären Garden in und um Teheran. „Das ist keine Haft oder Hausarrest“, so die Schlussfolgerung eines hochrangigen Geheimdienstmitarbeiters. „Die können schalten und walten, wie sie wollen.“

Das konnte auch Saif al Adel, Militärchef und Nummer drei von Al Qaida. Anfang Mai 2003 schneidet der saudische Geheimdienst seine Telefonate mit dem Organisator der Anschlagsserie in der saudischen Hauptstadt Riad mit, der im Mai 2003 mehr als 30 Menschen, darunter sieben Ausländer, zum Opfer fallen. Saif al Adel gibt den Befehl zu den Attentaten aus Iran heraus, wo er unter den Fittichen des iranischen Geheimdienstes agiert.

Iranische Geheimdienste, so die Erkenntnisse nahöstlicher wie westlicher Sicherheitsdienste, arbeiten schon seit Jahren immer wieder mit sunnitischen Dschihad-Organisationen von Al Qaida zusammen. „Als Islamist gehe ich zu den Saudis, um Geld zu bekommen“, skizziert der jordanische GID-Mann die bisherige Praxis islamistischer Gotteskrieger. „Wenn ich Waffen, logistische Unterstützung oder militärisch-terroristische Ausbildung und Ausrüstung brauche, gehe ich zu den Iranern.“ Die Blaupausen für die Al-Qaida-Anschläge auf die US-Botschaften in Kenia und Tansania 1998 stammen aus Teheran. Der Mann beruft sich auf Zeugenaussagen, Dokumente und Telefonmitschnitte.

Aber auch aus Iran selbst kommen ganz offene und sehr kriegerische Töne. Sie künden von der Wiederkehr des iranischen Staatsterrorismus in den achtziger und neunziger Jahren des vergangenen Jahrhunderts. Einer Jahre währenden Serie von Geiselnahmen und Morden an westlichen Ausländern fielen in Libanon mehr als sechzig Menschen zum Opfer. Sowohl die Baracke der US-Marines als auch die der französischen Friedenstruppen wurden in die Luft gesprengt, hunderte Menschen starben. Die Täter: die libanesische Hisbollah. Die Planer und Hintermänner stammen aus der Führungsriege der Revolutionären Garden Irans.

I'll post the FBIS translation as soon as I am able to receive it (for failing that, another German translation if someone wants to e-mail me one), but this would seem to support the position of Dr. Ledeen and myself for well over 3 years now that the al-Qaeda leaders in Iran remain entirely active. The NIE on Iran, as I understand it, is murky, probably deliberately, on this point, but it's long past time that this issue start receiving its due attention.

posted by Dan @ 8:48 PM

Wednesday, October 26, 2005