Evidence points to terrorists hiding in Iran

U.S. officials have not publicly discussed the Saudi capture of al-Harbi or their evidence on al-Mughassil’s whereabouts, but they have increasingly raised questions about Iran’s efforts to turn over other suspected terrorists believed to be under some form of loose house arrest.

Nicholas Burns, State Department undersecretary for political affairs, told Congress last month that Iran has refused to identify al-Qaida members it has in custody.

“Iran continues to hold senior al-Qaida leaders who are wanted for murdering Americans and others in the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings and for plotting to kill countless others,” Burns said.

Top administration officials have repeatedly warned Iran against harboring or assisting suspected terrorists.

Al-Zarqawi in Iran?
U.S. intelligence this week has been checking some reports, still uncorroborated as of Friday, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader of the Iraqi insurgency, may have dipped into Iran, officials said.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned countries in the Middle East not to help al-Zarqawi.

“Were a neighboring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they, obviously, would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al-Qaida network and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands,” Rumsfeld said.

The U.S. and foreign officials said evidence gathered by intelligence agencies indicates the following figures are somewhere in Iran, perhaps under some form of house arrest or surveillance:

• Saad bin Laden, the son of the al-Qaida leader whom U.S. authorities have aggressively hunted since the Sept. 11 attacks.
• Saif al-Adel, an al-Qaida security chief wanted in connection with the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
• Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the chief of information for al-Qaida and a frequently quoted spokesman for bin Laden.

Bartering chips
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said it’s possible that some of the suspected terrorists are being held in guarded villas, and he doubted any detention is uncomfortable.

“I think that Iran sees these guys as something of an insurance policy,” Katzman said. “It’s leverage.”

Rasool Nafisi, a Middle East analyst who studies conservative groups in Iran, said Iran has returned some lower-level operatives to their home countries but probably is keeping higher-ranking operatives as a bartering chip.

“Remember, Islamic tradition is very much based on haggling,” Nafisi said. “If I were the Iranian government, I’d be very happy to have them and to use them in future negotiations with the United States.”

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