Is this the group that was arrested in France (Mujahedeen Khalq)? Can you explain who they are? (I don't think the AP did a very good job explaining them.)
Tehran Says Foiled Al Qaeda Attacks in Iran
Sun August 17, 2003 04:55 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has foiled a number of attacks which al Qaeda had been planning to carry out inside the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency quoted a senior Iranian official as saying on Sunday.
"Their (al Qaeda's) plans for a wide range of terrorist acts inside Iran were neutralized by our intelligence organizations," IRNA quoted Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, as saying.
Rohani gave no details of the planned attacks or whether any al Qaeda members linked to them were arrested.
Iran says it has arrested a number of al Qaeda members in recent months, including some senior figures in Osama bin Laden's organization, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and other "terrorist" attacks.
But Tehran has declined to name who it is holding and says it will not hand them over to U.S. officials for questioning.
Intelligence sources and media reports suggest Iran may be holding Saad bin Laden, a son of the al Qaeda leader as well as al Qaeda's security chief Egyptian Saif al Adel and its Kuwaiti-born spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, among others.
Washington has in the past accused Iran of sheltering al Qaeda and said members of bin Laden's network in Iran may have planned the May 12 bombings in Riyadh which killed 35 people.
Tehran accuses Washington of double standards on terrorism and called on it to deal with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) -- an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq which has long been termed "terrorist" by the State Department.
The State Department on Friday announced the Washington offices of two organizations linked to the MEK -- the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the People's Mujahideen of Iran -- had been closed down.
Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi welcomed the U.S. move against MEK as a "positive step." But Kharrazi also called on Washington to take action against MEK fighters in Iraq.
"It should be considered that the heads of this terrorist grouplet are in Iraq which is under U.S. control and America should act upon its responsibilities to confront them," he was quoted as saying by the Mardomsalari newspaper.
Security analysts have speculated that Iran may be willing to swap some of its al Qaeda detainees for MEK leaders. Iran has firmly denied offering Washington such a swap.
Iran says it has arrested and deported around 500 al Qaeda suspects in the last year who fled across its borders from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We are serious in our fight against terrorists," Rohani said. "The arrest, expulsion and handing over of many al Qaeda members is proof of that."
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3289722