Al Qaeda ordered Saudi bombing from Iran

RIYADH (Reuters) - A senior al Qaeda militant orchestrated the bombing of a residential compound in Saudi Arabia earlier this month by telephone from Iran, a Saudi newspaper says.

Okaz newspaper, quoting informed sources on Sunday, said the militant network's security chief Saif al-Adel gave orders for the attack in the capital Riyadh by satellite phone.

Neither Saudi nor Iranian officials were immediately available to comment on the Okaz report.

"The sources said Saif al-Adel led the bombing operation of the Muhaya residential compound, using a Thuraya phone to give instructions to the terrorists in the kingdom who carried out the criminal operation," the Arabic-language daily said.

At least 18 people were killed in the Muhaya bombing two weeks ago, blamed on Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The attack followed triple suicide bombings in Riyadh in May which killed 35 people.

The newspaper said Saif al-Adel fled to Iran with 500 al Qaeda members during the intensive U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in late 2001. It said they were detained by Iranian troops.

Some al Qaeda militants in northern Iran were in touch with figures outside including bin Laden, it added.

Asked on Sunday about U.S. media reports that bin Laden and top al Qaeda figures may be in Iran, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters in Tehran:

"These are rumours...We are serious about confronting al Qaeda. We have always been and will continue to be so."

Iran has said it arrested a number of al Qaeda members, including some senior figures, but has declined to name them and says it will not hand them over to U.S. officials for questioning.

Last month, Tehran said it had given the names of extradited al Qaeda suspects to the U.N. Security Council but declined to give any details of detainees remaining in the country.

Western intelligence sources and media reports suggest Iran may be holding Saif al-Adel.

Washington has in the past accused Iran of sheltering al Qaeda and said members of the militant network in Iran may have planned the May bombings in Riyadh. Iran denied the charges.

"Did anyone see the interview with Monsoor Ijaz last week on Fox ... "

Here it is from a previous post

Report: Iranians hiding bin Laden ...Tehran helping warlord retake Afghanistan
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 11.21.2003 | WorldNetDaily.com
Posted on 11/21/2003 2:53 PM PST by DoctorZIn
Citing an "unimpeachable source," Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are in Iran, according to a Fox News analyst.
Al-Zawahiri was seen within the last two weeks, and bin Laden was spotted in July, says the network's foreign affairs analyst Mansoor Ijaz.
The report dovetails with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's announcement last summer that he had sent his own army into the northern tribal areas near the border with Iran to ferret out bin Laden.
"That was an extraordinary admission at the time, one that I could not understand how he could make if bin Laden, in fact, was still in that area," Ijaz told Fox News host Brit Hume. "Well, it turns out that it was around that time that bin Laden moved from the Afghan-Pakistani border into Iran."
Al-Zawahiri has been seen recently in Iran planning and plotting various terrorist attacks against U.S. interests and other countries, he said.
Both al-Qaida leaders are disguised. Bin Laden, Ijaz has been told, shaved his head bald and is wearing a shorter beard that is dyed to make him look more like an Iranian cleric. He also has put on a considerable amount of weight.
Al-Zawahiri has done something similar, Ijaz said, and is now wearing a black turban and dyed beard instead of the traditional white turban he wore as an Egyptian cleric.
Bin Laden is being kept out of the public while al-Zawahiri is said to be moving around quite freely, Ijaz said.
The analyst said the Revolutionary Guard of Iran has arranged for at least three to four body doubles that are making their way around different parts of Afghanistan to fool bin Laden's pursuers.
"But I can tell you with unimpeachability tonight that he is on the western border of Iran, inside Iran, planning terrorist attacks against the United States' interests in that part of the world," Ijaz said.
He explained that Iran's provision of safe harbor, finances and logistical support for al-Qaida is a measure to counter the possibility that U.S. action in that region could result in democracies on both sides of the country, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ijaz said a warlord who controls Afghanistan's western provinces, Gulbuddin Hektmayer, is working with al-Qaida on a plan to bring a large army of Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops into Afghanistan during the winter months to attack U.S. interests and to try to take control of the entire country.
"Iran does not want to see us succeed in building a democracy in Afghanistan under any circumstances," he said.
In short, according to Ijaz, Iranian technology is now being used to help the Afghan warlords to take over the country from Hamid Karzai," the Afghan president.
Ijaz said it is likely certain segments of the U.S. government have the information on bin Laden and are analyzing and processing it.
"But it was my judgment, he said, "that it was vitally important for the broader part of our government's decision-making apparatus to know exactly what it is that's going on there, because it's very clear that the Iranians are trying desperately to not only hang on to power, but to fuel the terrorist enterprise in that part of the world."

Mansoor Ijaz: Osama In Iran

November 21, 2003

Mansoor Ijaz, whose foreign policy insights I have long praised, rang up Fox and Friends live from London on Thursday morning to talk about his extraordinary report that Osama bin Laden is in Iran. Ijaz has spent about a month "quietly debriefing some very important intelligence sources that have come out of Iran" who feel the radical Islamist regime is taking the country "right off the cliff" by putting up Osama in one of the Western provinces.

Mansoor told Weather Guy Steve Doocy, "I think the time has come now to essentially confront the Iranian regime with the question, 'Are you harboring the top three or four leaders of Al-Qaeda?' This is the specific information that we have." Mansoor reports that Osama and his deputy Ayman Zawahiri crossed over into Iran in old Soviet-style black limos, under the guidance of the head of the Ayatollah's Revolutionary Guard. He says that the U.S. government now has this information, and is deciding how to deal with it.

My opinion has long been that we snuffed out bin Laden when we turned Tora Bora's thermostat up to 2,000 degrees. But if we didn't and he survived, it would make total sense for him to hightail it to Iran. Iran has always been one of the principal exporters of, and training centers for, terrorism. Note that Iran's statement that it's pursuing nuclear power for energy when it's a nation sitting atop a lake of oil, is so transparent a lie that even UN Atomic Energy Commission head Mohammed ElBaradei doesn’t buy it. As I've always said: keep an eye on Iran.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112103/content/stack_f.guest.html

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