Iran in contact with al-Qaeda, says Cofer Black

ISLAMABAD: US State Department’s ambassador-at-large J Cofer Black has claimed that the Iranian government is in contact with al-Qaeda and that it must expel or extradite all members of the network to the countries of their origin.

In an exclusive interview with Geo TV, Black said that our intelligence agencies are aware of the presence of some senior al-Qaeda leaders in Iran who are dangerous. He said that "these al-Qaeda operators are not only a threat to the US but they are also a threat to Pakistan".

Black appreciated the role of Pakistan in the war against terrorism and said that "two-thirds of al-Qaeda has been neutralised and more than 3,500 supporters have been arrested all over the world after 9/11".

He was not sure that Osama bin Laden would be captured alive but he said one thing with full confidence: "We will capture him very soon, if he does not surrender, then I don’t know what will happen?"

Black categorically denied the report of Radio Tehran that Osama was captured in South Waziristan. He said that the radio made the same claim last year, which was not true.

Black served for 28 years in the CIA but he was not ready to answer some questions related to intelligence. He neither confirmed nor contradicted the recent secret visit of CIA chief George Tenet to Pakistan. He was not ready to comment on a reported meeting between Tenet and Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan in Islamabad but he said that Dr Qadeer is definitely providing vital information about proliferation.

While responding to a question, Black confirmed that coalition troops in Afghanistan are preparing for a major "hunt Osama operation" but he refused to comment on the reports that Osama’s deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahri was spotted by US spy planes recently in the Waziristan region. Black also spoke on the threat of nuclear terrorism.

The detailed interview will be telecast on Geo TV on Sunday at 12:30 pm with a repeat telecast at 5:30 pm.

Iran's support for terrorists is not news. For as long as the State Department has been keeping a public list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which during the "what, me worry?" Clinton years morphed to "Nations of Particular Concern" or some such feel-good twaddle, Iran has had the leading position on that list.

More people are killed, maimed, and deprived of liberty by terrorists who are funded, trained, or otherwise supported by Iran, than are victims of terror sponsored by all other nations combined. Most of this terrorism happens to foreign people in foreign lands like Israel, Lebanon, Indonesia, and former-Soviet Central Asia, so Americans tend not to hear about it, but there are dedicated people who work on these things and keep track.

The US knows it has one great ally, though, against terrorism in Iran: the ordinary Iranian people, who take pride in their Persian heritage, seek the positive in their Islamic faith, and reject the ayatollahs' partnership with evil and death.

Iran will be free, and then where will the terrorists go? I can answer that. Prison cells, interrogation rooms, perhaps the gallows. When the Iranians get their freedom, which is as inevitable as the changing of the seasons, you really don't want to be the foreigner who has stained Persian honour with innocent blood.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

More Buzz....

Who will win in Tribal Areas — Qaeda or Commando 121?

Daily Times Monitor

KABUL: The “war” in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Tribal Areas is barely on, but the Pentagon’s spinning machine is in high gear, according to Asia Times Online.

It puts a question forward, asking who will prevail in this fight: Al Qaeda’s No 2, Ayman “The Surgeon” Al-Zawahiri or Commando 121, also known as Task Force 121?

Asia Times reported that Commando 121 transferred this week from Iraq to Pakistan, without a blip on many strategic radar screens. “Osama Bin Laden will be ‘smoked out’ probably on a tip by an Afghan tribal leader willing to make a cool $25 million. And all credit will go to the secretive Commando 121, which is known to comprise Navy Seals and commandos from the army’s Delta Force,” it said.

“The Pentagon has fired its first rhetorical Tomahawks of the season - via a leak this past weekend by a “US intelligence source” that Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Mulla Omar and about 50 top Al Qaeda operatives had been located in Balochistan. President General Pervez Musharraf was said to be on the brink of authorising an American intervention. According to the Pentagon script, the fugitives are “boxed in”, packed in a tight group, surrounded by an array of US and British special forces, and apparently with no chance of escaping,” Asia Times claimed.

The report said, “The fugitives are now said to be in the isolated Toba Kakar mountains in Balochistan and very far from the Afghan province of Zabul. They are supposed to be in an area between the villages of Khanozoi and Murgha Faqizai. There is an obvious escape route, a tortuous mountain trail towards the Afghan border village of Ala Jezah. And there are the not-so-obvious routes, known only to Bin Laden and a few Arab-Afghans familiar with the country since the early 1980s.”

Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was in Afghanistan this week. Exasperated diplomats suggest to Asia Times Online that he may have personally negotiated the terms of the “authorisation” with President Musharraf. After all, these are the stakes that really matter for the Bush administration that when, where and how to spin the capture of Bin Laden and Mulla Omar, it said.

CIA supremo George Tenet was on a secret mission to Islamabad in early February to discuss the modalities of spinning concerning Bin Laden’s whereabouts. According to the CIA chief, Bin Laden has “gone deep underground”. He was not specific, and unlike the Pentagon, he did not point to the exact global positioning satellite coordinates of Bin Laden and his crew of 50. Rumsfeld clearly knows something that Tenet does not. “Another key actor, President Musharraf, is duly following his script stationing “tens of thousands” of Pakistan Army troops in the Tribal Areas and vigorously trying to smoke out the usual Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects. President Musharraf’s job is much easier now that the whole porous area has been declared off limits to the foreign press,” the report claimed.

Sources in Peshawar confirm to Asia Times Online that Pakistani and American forces are raising hell on both sides of the porous Pak-Afghan border, contributing with helicopter gun ships, paramilitary forces and regular ground troops. This is the hors d’oeuvre for the already well-flagged upcoming spring offensive by the resistance. The American offensive at first will be concentrated in North and South Waziristan, on the Pakistani side, and the provinces of Paktia and Paktika on the Afghan side. Pashtun tribes in the Afghan province of Khost confirm to Asia Times that after a bombing campaign, American forces and local Afghan allies brought with them the usual suitcases full of dollars and are now involved in house-to-house searches. This area used to be a stronghold of commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Americans will soon be forced to start a real war in Paktika. Some of the Paktika districts are now ruled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami, others by tribal leaders hostile to the Karzai regime. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed confirms that the Army was now deployed “all over the Tribal Areas”. “Our rapid action forces are there, they have sealed the border.” The information minister’s assurance that “no one is allowed to come in from Afghanistan” is part of the new official spin from Islamabad, “part of Pakistan’s commitment to the international community against terrorism”.

“Pakistan may have sealed the border with Afghanistan, but how to unseal it for the Americans is a matter to be discussed face-to-face by Rumsfeld and President Musharraf. The previous, official Pakistani script that its Army could not legally enter in Tribal Areas has been reduced to dust,” the report said.

“And what if Bin Laden decides not to follow the script? According to sources, Bin Laden has made his seven bodyguards take an oath to kill him in the event that he is in any danger of being arrested. He will try to blow himself up,” Asia Times reported.

On the other hand, it cites Western diplomatic sources who prefer to insist that if Bin Laden is arrested according to the current Pentagon plan, the whole operation will be kept secret to be disclosed only a few weeks or days before the American presidential election in November.

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