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Pentagon Says Al-Qaeda in Iran, Tehran Denies
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Iran denies reports it is knowingly harboring Al-Qaeda members
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WASHINGTON, August 29
(IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Pentagon on Wednesday, August
28, reiterated its belief that Al-Qaeda members were in Iran, even as
Tehran denied U.S. press reports that it was harboring two leading
members of the terror network.
Quoting unidentified Arab
intelligence sources, the Washington Post said Wednesday
that two top Al-Qaeda deputies in charge of planning terrorist
operations are being harbored in
Iran
along with dozens of Al-Qaeda fighters, and are plotting new attacks.
“There is an Iranian role in
hosting Al-Qaeda and sponsoring the movement of al-Qaeda,” a senior
Arab intelligence officer told the Post.
Even though experts are split on
whether Osama bin Laden or other top Al-Qaeda members have taken
refuge in Iran and Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dave
Lapan said, declining to comment on the Post report, “We know
that Al-Qaeda is in Iran; the Defense Secretary [Donald Rumsfeld] has
talked about it.”
“We don’t discuss
individuals. We have no information on names,” he said.
U.S.
officials said information on the men’s whereabouts had not been
confirmed.
Arab intelligence sources,
however, told the daily that Saif Al-Adel, an Egyptian, and Mahfouz
Ould Walid, also known as Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, are being
sheltered in hotels and guesthouses in the Iranian border cities of
Mashhad
and Zabol.
Adel is on the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s “most-wanted terrorists” list.
U.S.
officials had reported Walid was killed near the Afghan city of
Khost
in January.
According to the sources, who did
not want their names or countries disclosed, the two men were put in
charge of Al-Qaeda’s military and ideological committees after the
September 11 attacks. The military committee is in charge of directing
Al-Qaeda’s attacks.
State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said he agreed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
that, “there have been Al-Qaeda members who’ve made their way into
Iran, and that our view is that Iran should not provide any safe
haven.”
“No nation should be offering
any harbor or safe haven for terrorists, and we would expect
Iran
not to offer any safe haven,” Boucher said.
For its part,
Iran
, through a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations,
denied the two men were in
Iran
. “
Iran
’s policy is not to permit such people to enter
Iran
,” the official said.
In
Tehran
, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi denied the report,
saying, “No member of al-Qaeda is in
Iran
and
Tehran
’s policy is not to give refuge to this group,” the official
Islamic Republic News Agency said.
“
Iran
has all along discharged its responsibilities against terrorism and it
is its policy not to provide shelter to Al-Qaeda members. The two
people mentioned in Washington Post are not in
Iran
. Following its policies, the government of
Iran
has not allowed terrorists to enter its territory,” Asefi said.
“Based on its responsibilities,
Iran
will resolutely fight terrorism, and preventing terrorists from
entering
Iran
’s territory is in full conformity with
Iran
’s national interests. It is ugly that some American circles make
accusations against
Iran
without any evidence.”
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