Posted on 02/17/2002 2:41:20 PM PST by Ranger
TEHRAN, February 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Sunday rejected press report that a senior terrorist has been arrested in Iran, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Asefi's remarks came as the Farsi-language daily Hayat-e No reported on Sunday that a leading al-Qaeda member Iman al-Zawaheri, an assistant to Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect of the September 11 terror attack in the U.S., has been detained in Iran. Iran said on Thursday it had arrested some 150 infiltrators with Arab, African and European nationalities as suspected members of Taliban and al-Qaeda at its eastern borders with Pakistan. But the Islamic republic has repeatedly denied U.S. accusations that it has interfered in Afghan internal affairs and given shelters to al-Qaeda fugitives. Enditem
Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man Imprisoned in Iran
"The right-hand man of Osama bin Laden has been arrested and is imprisoned in the Iranian capital of Tehran, a leading Iranian daily claims. The Farsi-language Hayat-e-Nou reports that Ayman al-Zawahri is in Tehran's Evin prison, where well-known political prisoners are often held.It did not disclose its sources or provide any other information.
Hayat-e-Nou, which is run by Hadi Khamenei, an influential legislator and brother of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is among Iran's most reliable newspapers.
Experts on bin Laden's movements had assumed that al-Zawahri, a doctor and bin Laden's spiritual adviser and potential successor as head of the terrorist network al-Qaida, would be with bin Laden in hiding.
Hayat-e-Nou did not mention the whereabouts of bin Laden, who has been the subject of an intensive manhunt since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Iran's reported detention of a key al-Qaida figure comes amid signs that Tehran is trying to defuse tensions with the United States, which has accused it of trying to destabilise neighbouring Afghanistan by harbouring al-Qaida militants.
CIA Director George Tenet says recently that Tehran had failed "to move decisively against al-Qaida members who have relocated to Iran from Afghanistan".
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported last week that authorities had arrested about 150 people, including a number of Arabs, for questioning over links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, which harboured bin Laden...."
So, he was "detained." Meaning, in other words, he had been free there for a while. This report may be the work of a faction in Iran, even a radical faction, upset with Iran's harboring of Al Qaeda. The report is pretty detailed, indeed.
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Here's an article about US's ambassador to Afghanistan, Mr. Khalilzad, and his interview with the BBC. I'm amazed that the media, even the British media, didn't pick up on it. I think there is a left-wing resentment that Bush is right about the Iranian theocrats' duplicity, and a residual hanging on to the hope that Iran can remain anti-American and not a supporter of terrorism, which would satisfy the prejudices of their world-view.
This article mentions the divisions withing the Iranian government, and is thereby instructive.:
Tehran given details of Iranian interference in Afghanistan' (BBC Interview story)[Feb. 13]
"...He said hardline elements around Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and in the elite Revolutionary Guards were helping to arm and finance groups in Afghanistan in a bid to establish pockets of influence and discourage co-operation with the interim government.
Khalilzad said Washington was concerned that Iran had two policies on Afghanistan, driven by the moderate supporters of reformist President Mohammad Khatami and the hardliners respectively.
The first was constructive, as demonstrated by Khatami's statements and the work done by Iranian diplomats, but the other more negative. Khalilzad alleged that members of the Al Qods division of the Revolutionary Guards had been despatched to Afghanistan along with a group of Afghan Shias trained in Lebanon known as Mohamed's Soldiers.
He said he also believed that some elements of the Revolutionary Guards had had a relatively longstanding relationship with the al-Qaeda terror movement and had helped members of the group escape from Afghanistan to Iran following the defeat of the Taliban regime.
Some al-Qaeda members, he alleged, had even been allowed to travel on to other destinations. He added that Washington was fairly confident that Taliban officials had also received assistance to cross into Iran. "We have given them (the Iranians) the information we have with regard to what we think is happening, particularly with regard to al-Qaeda presence in Iran and movement across Iran," he said. Iran's government has strongly denied the US allegations, saying if Washington provides evidence it will arrest any al-Qaeda fighters it finds. Khalilzad insisted that Washington had no plans to attack Iran, which Bush has linked with Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil".
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My prediction: Iran has constantly stated that they would turn over captured al qaeda (the ones they didn't let go already) to their "home countries." In other words, not America, which the Iranian Mullahs would detest to do. Sending Zawahiri to Egypt, if they have him, is not so bad a deal!
If they will not hand him over to us then in my opinion arrest and harbor are the same thing. They have only arrested these men to keep them from being detained by us. Then Iran figures we will forget about them and move on. This plan may actually work too if we get to bombing Iraq soon.
Al Zawaheri (the mad doc) and bin Laden are probably both there.
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