Posted on 07/17/2004 4:53:20 PM PDT by MadIvan
Iran gave free passage to up to 10 of the September 11 hijackers just months before the 2001 attacks and offered to co-operate with al-Qa'eda against the US, an American report will say this week.
The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission, set up by Congress in 2002, will state that Iran, not Iraq, fostered relations with the al-Qa'eda network in the years leading up to the world's most devastating terrorist attack.
The bipartisan commission has established that between eight and 10 of the September 11 hijackers, who had been based in Afghanistan, travelled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. The terrorists in question are believed to have been the "muscle" - hired to storm the aircraft cockpits and overpower crew and passengers.
Iranian officials were instructed not to harrass al-Qa'eda personnel as they crossed the border and, in some cases, not to stamp their passports.
According to testimony received by the commission - based on information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and about 100 electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency - an alliance of convenience was established between the Shia Muslim Iranian leadership and the Sunni terrorist organisation, well before September 11, 2001.
The report is expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that "there were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq".
It will further inflame tensions between Washington and Teheran, where hardliners are threatening to restart its uranium enrichment programme, a key step towards building nuclear weapons.
A commission official, quoted in the latest edition of Time magazine, alleges that Iranian officials approached Osama bin Laden after the bombing of the USS Cole in 1999, proposing a joint strategy of attacks on US interests.
A preliminary report from commission staff, released last month, stated: "Bin Laden's representatives and Iranian officials discussed putting aside Shia-Sunni divisions to co-operate against the common enemy."
The offer is said to have been turned down by bin Laden, who was reluctant to alienate Sunni supporters in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, in the wake of September 11, Iran sheltered al-Qaeda militants fleeing Afghanistan.
The full report by the commission is also expected to endorse initial conclusions that al-Qa'eda may have been involved in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, when 19 American servicemen were killed. The attack has long been blamed solely on Hizbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group backed by Iran.
Iran was declared part of an "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea, by President George W. Bush in 2002. The report will add to pressure for Iran's theocratic rulers to be the first target of a re-elected Bush administration. Hawks within the administration want a concerted effort to overturn the regime by peaceful means.
Some Bush officials are privately contemplating a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Russian fuel rods are delivered next year.
Teheran said yesterday that it had arrested an unspecified number of Iranian al-Qa'eda supporters.
sounds like someone may want to help the students over there...
if alqaeda had contacts with iran, it would have to be pre taliban and post taliban. it would not seem possible during the taliban rule, considering the hostility between taliban and iran.
But if the NSA had communication intercepts, then i wouldn't doubt it. Anything is possible in the islamic world ofmirror, lies and deception.
we can still get iran for its WMD program and for providing zarqawi with passage into iraq
5.56mm
I would believe NSA intercepts without a doubt.
But i woudn't believe GITMO detainees. The saudis and the pakis might be trying to deflect the blame away from themselves there.
we should never lose focus in this war on terror.
All three pakistan, iran and saudi arabia should remain in focus till we get them to dismantle their WMD's and address the terror threat long term with the closure of religious schools, banning of parties like jamiati islami and weeding terrorists out from their govts.
So far they haven't done anything to address the terror potential, which remains at the same level.
Iran has been neck deep in the al Qaida movement since its' inception. Granted, the ISI in Pakistan was responsible for creating the Taliban, but that is a separate organization from aQ. Even today, Iran is sheltering, training, and giving intelligence to aQ.
Pre-911, Iran could have given lots of intel to aQ - such as the FAA schedule for the emergency training that took place on the morning of 9-11, slowing down the actual response to the hijackings. The chances of aQ having a mole inside the FAA is far less than a state sponsor such as Iran - especially when the State Department is doing all it can to kiss the mullah's butts instead of kicking them as they should.
"The report is expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that "there were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq"."
No mention of Afghanistan?
Of course, we now have bases and standing armies encircling Iran from two sides...
...putting major pressure on Iran.
Let's roll!
I wonder if this report would be heard by US public or what the h311? These mullahs aren’t Persian cats to be pets. I hear people of Iran have given up. Resistance has been reduced to nothing after the election boycott.
This war has been going on for 1500 years...It's a war of civilizations. When the latest battles began I was calling it the 4th World War...WWI, WWII, The Cold War, coming first.
I'm now thinking about evising the list and calling this war the First WW.
prisoner6
alqaeda was cobbled up with muslims from all over the world to fight the soviets.
That operation was run solely by pakistan.
Iran had no part in it. It was an operation run by the pakis with saudi influence, since they were pumping 1 billion a year into it..
Pakistan is 100% responsible for al qaeda's creation.
You have to see where the group was created and the fact that osama bin laden had his family based in pakistan, i think even after 1998.
He lived in pakistan and afghanistan all this time.
Read news reports from the period and you'd know.
During the war with the soviets, the pakis demanded that the CIA have no contact with afghan resistance and no so say whatsoever in who the funds should go to.
The CIA was pumping a billion a year into the operation and yet they couldn't meet afghan resistance or even decide which groups their money should go o.
All contact had to be through pakistani intelligence, who turned the war into a terror outfit against the US itself.
So a significant amount of the funds ended up in al qaeda and pakistan's nuclear program.
Check out his posts.
The northern alliance are the people who fought the soviets
however after the war ended, they refused to take part in a world wide jihad.
In 1993, pakistan came under threat of western sanctions, after pakistani sponsored terrorists kidnapped and killed westerners in indian kashmir.
So pakistan needed afghanistan as a base to wage terror against the world, yet avoid sanctions.
the pakistanis cobbled the taliban together from afghan kids at pakistani religious schools, once the taliban won victory, some older commanders joined them as well.
With the taliban in power, pakistan shifted its terror operations to afghanistan and used training camps in afghanistan to wage war in india, chechenya, israel phillipines, algeria, egypt and finally america.
The whole operation was paid for by the saudis.
read a few books on taliban and another one called the bear trap by a paki intelligence guy and you'd know what went on in afghanistan. Don't buy any book to let former terrorists reap the profits though.
Yup, you've got the right idea...
The sound of distant drums. Iran is next. We're only waiting for the spark.
The US has elections coming up, but israel should go for iran.
israel has no military reprisals to fear since it has no adjoining iranian terror.
At the worst it could be iranian sponsored terror that would turn world opinion against iran and in favor of israel.
Israel bought the F-15 E strike eagles precisely for the purpose. I'd say now is the time to use them.
--Iranian officials were instructed not to harrass al-Qa'eda personnel as they crossed the border and, in some cases, not to stamp their passports.--
Ummm....who's up for another regime change?
My view is not quite so harsh. I think we have known all along who was responsible. However, it took a real man as a President to actually do something about it, and hold the people responsible accountable. Further, I remember reading at the time, that people in the Middle East thought Iran was behind the TWA flight 800 disaster. The mullahs are starting to lose sleep. "It is the end for us my brother. Bush is not Clinton."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.