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06-24-2005, 11:13 PM
Al-Qaida finds safe haven in Iran
But former leaders reportedly under house arrest
Suleiman Abu Ghaith, once a spokesman for bin Laden, is believed to be living Iran. Gaith and other former al-Qaida leaders, fled to Iran after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
Al-jazeera / AFP
By Robert Windrem
Investigative producer
NBC News
Updated: 8:13 p.m. ET June 24, 2005
Somewhere north of Tehran, living perhaps in villas near the town of Chalous on the Caspian Sea coast, are between 20 and 25 of al-Qaida’s former leaders, along with two of Osama bin Laden’s sons.
Men such as Saif al-Adel, the former military commander of al-Qaida, and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the bespectacled bin Laden spokesman, are not in hiding but rather in the care — or custody — of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
“They are under virtual house arrest,” not able to do much of anything, said one senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
How they got there and what will happen to them is one of the more intriguing stories of the war on terror, one that is filled with secret movements, stolen communications and a failed attempt at a prisoner exchange involving Iranian dissidents.
“We believe that they're holding members of al-Qaida's management council,” Fran Townsend, President Bush’s counterterrorism czar, said of Iran.
In an interview with Tom Brokaw two weeks ago, she added: “And we have encouraged and suggested that they ought to try them, they ought to admit freely that they're there — which they have not done — that they're holding them. Or they ought to return them to their countries of origin, which they've also been unwilling to do.”
How’d they get there?
The road to Iran
NBC News has learned that in the chaotic last days before Kabul, Afghanistan, fell to U.S. troops in November 2001, bin Laden and his lieutenants made a strategic decision. Al-Qaida’s then military commander, Mohammed Atef, has just been blown up in a U.S. air attack in the city, one in which a CIA Predator had pinpointed the very house he was staying in. It was time to move out.
Al-Qaida’s leadership had been divided into consultative and management councils, both of which reported to bin Laden.
The consultative council, the “al shura,” was viewed as the more critical to the terror network's continued operations. Its members, including bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would flee east to cities in Pakistan. There, over the next few years, many key players would be picked up and bundled off to interrogation centers with great regularity. Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaida’s recruitment and training leader — known as the “dean of students” — was arrested in Faisalabad. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, its operations commander, was grabbed in Rawalpindi; two of his deputies, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Faraj al Libbi, were taken in Karachi and Multan, and other lesser figures were regularly rousted by Pakistani forces.
The management council went west, to northern Iran, where the United States had little sway and the Iranians had little interest in pushing for their arrests. The group included al-Adel and abu Ghaith; Shaik Said, al-Qaida's chief financial officer; Abu Hafs, al-Qaida’s personnel director; the two top aides to Zawahiri; and a mysterious Yemeni, Abu Dahak, who served as al-Qaida’s ambassador to the rebels in Chechnya. On a personal level, two of bin Laden’s teenage sons, Sa’ad and Hamza, also were taken to Iran.
Setting up base
That’s not to say the Iranians, with their Shiite leadership, held any love for the Wahhabis and Salafists. Iranian intelligence had tried to kill Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, at a palace built for him by bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
“They missed, but it wasn’t for lack of trying,” said a Pentagon counter terrorism official at the time of the 2000 attempt. “It was one big truck bomb. I know. I saw pictures of the crater.”
But Iran was either unable or uninterested in taking the al-Qaida members into custody. Al-Qaida operatives, it was soon determined, were in communications, both personally and electronically, with the management and consultative councils. Orders were being given, commands were being carried out.
In April 2002, only five months after leaving Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials believed they saw a link between al-Qaida in Iran and the first post-9/11 terrorist attack ordered by bin Laden. A propane truck, used a truck bomb, breached the gates of one of Africa’s oldest synagogues in Djerba, Tunisia, killing 14 tourists. Although the suicide bomber was Tunisian, Western intelligence believed that the attack has been organized by Sa’ad bin Laden.
Feeling pressure
There was also evidence that critical meetings regarding the future of al-Qaida were being held in the relative safety of Iran. But al-Qaida decided at a meeting in Iran in November 2002 that the pressure on it was so great that it could no longer exist as a hierarchy. Two top leaders had just been arrested in Pakistan and in the pre-Iraq war environment, Western governments were putting up a united front.
Instead, following the advice of a key Iran-based al-Qaida strategist, Mustapha Nasar Setmariam, the terror network decided to move its operatives out into the wider world, to the rest of the Middle East, Europe and North America.
As time wore on, the al-Qaida operatives became bolder. In May 2003, operatives in Saudi Arabia carried out the first attack in Riyadh, targeting Westerners’ compounds. Thirty-five people, including eight Americans, were killed.
TO BE CONTINUED
But former leaders reportedly under house arrest
Suleiman Abu Ghaith, once a spokesman for bin Laden, is believed to be living Iran. Gaith and other former al-Qaida leaders, fled to Iran after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
Al-jazeera / AFP
By Robert Windrem
Investigative producer
NBC News
Updated: 8:13 p.m. ET June 24, 2005
Somewhere north of Tehran, living perhaps in villas near the town of Chalous on the Caspian Sea coast, are between 20 and 25 of al-Qaida’s former leaders, along with two of Osama bin Laden’s sons.
Men such as Saif al-Adel, the former military commander of al-Qaida, and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the bespectacled bin Laden spokesman, are not in hiding but rather in the care — or custody — of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
“They are under virtual house arrest,” not able to do much of anything, said one senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
How they got there and what will happen to them is one of the more intriguing stories of the war on terror, one that is filled with secret movements, stolen communications and a failed attempt at a prisoner exchange involving Iranian dissidents.
“We believe that they're holding members of al-Qaida's management council,” Fran Townsend, President Bush’s counterterrorism czar, said of Iran.
In an interview with Tom Brokaw two weeks ago, she added: “And we have encouraged and suggested that they ought to try them, they ought to admit freely that they're there — which they have not done — that they're holding them. Or they ought to return them to their countries of origin, which they've also been unwilling to do.”
How’d they get there?
The road to Iran
NBC News has learned that in the chaotic last days before Kabul, Afghanistan, fell to U.S. troops in November 2001, bin Laden and his lieutenants made a strategic decision. Al-Qaida’s then military commander, Mohammed Atef, has just been blown up in a U.S. air attack in the city, one in which a CIA Predator had pinpointed the very house he was staying in. It was time to move out.
Al-Qaida’s leadership had been divided into consultative and management councils, both of which reported to bin Laden.
The consultative council, the “al shura,” was viewed as the more critical to the terror network's continued operations. Its members, including bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would flee east to cities in Pakistan. There, over the next few years, many key players would be picked up and bundled off to interrogation centers with great regularity. Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaida’s recruitment and training leader — known as the “dean of students” — was arrested in Faisalabad. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, its operations commander, was grabbed in Rawalpindi; two of his deputies, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Faraj al Libbi, were taken in Karachi and Multan, and other lesser figures were regularly rousted by Pakistani forces.
The management council went west, to northern Iran, where the United States had little sway and the Iranians had little interest in pushing for their arrests. The group included al-Adel and abu Ghaith; Shaik Said, al-Qaida's chief financial officer; Abu Hafs, al-Qaida’s personnel director; the two top aides to Zawahiri; and a mysterious Yemeni, Abu Dahak, who served as al-Qaida’s ambassador to the rebels in Chechnya. On a personal level, two of bin Laden’s teenage sons, Sa’ad and Hamza, also were taken to Iran.
Setting up base
That’s not to say the Iranians, with their Shiite leadership, held any love for the Wahhabis and Salafists. Iranian intelligence had tried to kill Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, at a palace built for him by bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
“They missed, but it wasn’t for lack of trying,” said a Pentagon counter terrorism official at the time of the 2000 attempt. “It was one big truck bomb. I know. I saw pictures of the crater.”
But Iran was either unable or uninterested in taking the al-Qaida members into custody. Al-Qaida operatives, it was soon determined, were in communications, both personally and electronically, with the management and consultative councils. Orders were being given, commands were being carried out.
In April 2002, only five months after leaving Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials believed they saw a link between al-Qaida in Iran and the first post-9/11 terrorist attack ordered by bin Laden. A propane truck, used a truck bomb, breached the gates of one of Africa’s oldest synagogues in Djerba, Tunisia, killing 14 tourists. Although the suicide bomber was Tunisian, Western intelligence believed that the attack has been organized by Sa’ad bin Laden.
Feeling pressure
There was also evidence that critical meetings regarding the future of al-Qaida were being held in the relative safety of Iran. But al-Qaida decided at a meeting in Iran in November 2002 that the pressure on it was so great that it could no longer exist as a hierarchy. Two top leaders had just been arrested in Pakistan and in the pre-Iraq war environment, Western governments were putting up a united front.
Instead, following the advice of a key Iran-based al-Qaida strategist, Mustapha Nasar Setmariam, the terror network decided to move its operatives out into the wider world, to the rest of the Middle East, Europe and North America.
As time wore on, the al-Qaida operatives became bolder. In May 2003, operatives in Saudi Arabia carried out the first attack in Riyadh, targeting Westerners’ compounds. Thirty-five people, including eight Americans, were killed.
TO BE CONTINUED