http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/a...RTICLE_ID=40837
Iranian intel: Tehran harboring bin Laden
2 officials say they've seen terrorist
under care of Revolutionary Guard
Posted: October 8, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Iran's cleric leaders are harboring Osama bin Laden, according to two Iranian intelligence officials cited in a new book.
The sources say they have seen the al-Qaida terrorist leader alive and well, although he no longer resembles the picture on FBI wanted posters.
Author Richard Miniter writes in "Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror" that bin Laden "has trimmed his beard to fit the more traditional look of a Shi'ite cleric and he seemed to have put on weight, according to intelligence officials."
The sources say bin Laden is constantly on the move, "shuttling from Iranian safe houses controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to areas of Afghanistan controlled by the Iranian-backed warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar."
"Choopan," one of the sources, gives three reasons why Tehran would give safe have to bin Laden, risking the wrath of the West.
"First, the Iranians believe they can keep bin Laden's presence a secret and plausibly deny it if publicly accused," Miniter writes. "Second, the mullahs are feeling increasingly threatened by the War on Terror.
"The mullahs, Choopan says, fear a counter-revolution and see bin Laden's fighters as tools they can use to ensure the failure of these young democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan and the survival of mullah-dominated Iran. Finally, they share enemies, including many Arab leaders, the United States and the rest of the Western world."
The book, launched earlier this week by Regnery, publisher of "Unfit for Command," already is No. 2 on the Amazon.com list.
Osama pong
Baghdad, Oct. 8 – Crack troops of the Qods Force (Jerusalem Force), the extraterritorial force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, operating out of their base in the border town of Mehran, have seized Iraqi territories in Zeyn al-Qos, Seif Sa’ad and al-Amarah regions, according to reports from the area.
In recent months, forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have moved their main headquarters from central Iranian provinces to those on the Iran-Iraq border. These include Marivan in the north, Mehran in the center, and Shalamcheh in the south. Qods Force’s commanders oversee and direct their operations inside Iraq from these border bases.
The principle task of the Qods Force is to spread Iran’s “Islamic revolution” to other parts of the Muslim world. The Qods Force has been particularly active in the Iraqi theater and last April, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei decorated Qods Force Commandant General Qassem Soleimani for his “success in promoting Islamic revolution in Iraq.” News of the decoration was not made public.
Iraqi sources say that Iran has been setting up and financing “Islamic libraries” throughout southern and central Iraq and uses them as a conduit to wage propaganda and recruit young Iraqis.