WASHINGTON (IslamOnline.net) - U.S. officials believe that an Egyptian al-Qaeda leader who allegedly helped organize the triple bombings in Riyadh that killed 34 people last week is hiding in Iran, read a press report Sunday, May 18.

Saif Adel is thought to have become the network's top military officer after Muhammad Atef was killed in Afghanistan in 2001, and he may now be the third most senior member of the network, read the Washington Post report, attributed to two unnamed senior Bush administration officials and terrorism experts.

Adel, read the report, along with Abu Mohammed Masri, al Qaeda's head of training, Saad bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, and Abu Musab Zarqawi, who hid in Baghdad last year, are believed to be in Iran and represent one of two key command groups, charges Iran has denied. The other group is located along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

"There are some senior members of al Qaeda in Iran . . . who might have had a hand in this," a senior U.S. administration official was quoted by the paper as saying.

The report said that the Iranian government denied that any of those individuals are within its borders.

The report said that one senior administration official declined to discuss how Adel may have triggered the Saudi bombing, citing the sensitivity of intelligence sources and methods.

However, the report could be seen as a part of “pressures by the U.S. administration to force Iran to bow to Washington’s demands,” including more efforts in the war against terrorism, Egyptian political analyst Mohamed Said Sayyed told IslamOnline.net

Said made it clear that the unknown officials quoted by the Post might be “some of those in the Bush administration who want to disrupt the current improvements in the U.S.-Iranian relations or to serve Israeli interests,” Said contended.

“The Iranian government would have not even allowed any of al-Qaeda members into its territories, given its keenness to thwart all pretexts for a U.S. attack,” he added.

“A budding coalition of conservative hawks, Jewish organizations and Iranian monarchists is pressing the White House to step up American efforts to bring about regime change in Iran,” the Jewish Forward said Friday, May 16, declaring,

President Bush's current official stance is to encourage the Iranian people to push the Islamic regime aside themselves, it added.

"There is a pact emerging between hawks in the administration, Jewish groups and Iranian supporters of Reza Pahlavi [the exiled son of the former shah of Iran] to push for regime change," said Pooya Dayanim, president of the Iranian-Jewish Public Affairs Committee in Los Angeles.

The emerging coalition calling for a regime change in Iran, the Forward said, is reminiscent of the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, with Pahlavi possibly assuming the role of Iraqi exile opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of neoconservatives to lead Iraq.

Like Chalabi, Pahlavi has good relations with several Jewish groups. He has addressed the board of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and gave a public speech at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and met with Jewish communal leaders.

Pahlavi also has had quiet contacts with top Israeli officials, the Forward reported. During the last two years, a knowledgeable source told Forward, Pahlavi has met privately with Prime Minister Sharon and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Israel's Iranian-born president, Moshe Katsav.

In another parallel to the pre-invasion debate over Iraq, an intense policy battle is heating up between the State and Defense departments over what to do in Iran, the Forward said.

Forward was told by a source who follows the internal debate closely that Bush, Cheney and, even more so, the Pentagon support regime change in Iran, adding that the State Department does not want to meddle in Iran. This source that there is a big fight right now within the administration on Iran.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith are known to support regime change, although they have been much less vocal about Iran than Iraq.

Meanwhile, in Congress, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) is sponsoring a resolution supporting the people of Iran against the regime. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)-who was ironically decorated with Pakistan’s highest civilian award last week in Washington--has introduced an amendment that would set aside $50 million to fund Iranian opposition television and radio stations in Los Angeles - most of which promote a restoration of the shah's monarchy - as well as human rights and pro-democracy groups.

Supporters of the shah's son, Pahlavi, and the main pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have been supporting Brownback's amendment, know as the Iran Democracy Act.

When asked about the possibility of covert action, a member of the Pentagon-linked Defense Policy Board answered with one word: "maybe." He refused to elaborate.