Iran Accused of Complicity in World Trade Center Attack!
Posted on 07/17/2004 6:42:27 PM PDT by faludeh_shirazi
Iran Accused of Complicity in World Trade Center Attack!
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.
Nope, that wouldn't be wise.
Iran is ripe for an overthrow and we should do what we can to encourage and bolster that revolt. Use of ALL weapons wouldn't be prudent.
Looks like we may have another ally in the region coming up - I like that.
Congress had authorized the use of a pre-emptive strike against Iran in the 2003 session. This directive still stands.
The findings are more justification if the President decides to take action.
*When dealing with the regime or anything they say, very little "computes".
Iranian people never chose an Islamic Dictatorship - read your history. The Mullahs killed off tens of thousands of Secularist Nationalists to take that position and install their dictatorship.
Further, If we want to play games about what people did thirty forty years ago we can also say things about the Germans, Greeks, Japanese, Italians, and virtually every other country in the world.
this is coming together so fast. :o) and who do we have to thank for it. Surely not the likes of liberals. These people are a major threat and we have them on a few sides.
And maybe the nut case musslims should have thought twice than to mess with the US
"Iran is ripe for an overthrow and we should do what we can to encourage and bolster that revolt"
That would be great. And the Iranian people would rather have it be that way. But we're running short on time.
President Bush needs to throw LOTS of support toward an overthrow and fast. Otherwise, we'll end up having to do something more drastic in order to stop the regime from attaining nuclear weapons.
The Iranians have been screwed for decades. First with Mulsidic(sp?, then by the Shaw and now the Mullahs.
Yes, you are correct.
Actually, they went from the Shah to the Shah's son to Mossadeq to the Shah's son to Khomeini to Khamenei. (that gets you from 1925 to the present)
Sorry, the Democrats have already decided the enemy in the War on Terror is President Bush. We are going to have to settle the matter in November. Can you imagine this happening in America during WWII where so many in one of the major parties are out and out traitors ?
I've been telling everyone the will listen that in WWII we didn't attempt to invade Japan on the first day... we invaded (all though occupied)numerous countries in the South Pacific on a "campaign" on the way to Japan.
We are doing the same thing now... it's just that the leftist are too stupid (or subversive)to recognize it
There are Catholics all over the world, still the name of Jesus should be shown reverence
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I agree that in Iran we could probably forment revolution in the student movement (supply some military equipment operated by volunteer retired military personel (you know, they guys that got early retirement a week before signing up), throw them some cash and intelligence and let them have at it. Nice, clean way for both parties involved since the Iranians will be able to take control themselves, we won't be supplying troops, and the mullahs are toast). One point where I disagree however is that we need to spend about 48 hours straight dropping bomb after bomb on their nuclear facilities (about 100x what is needed to destroy it) so that there can be absolutely no doubt about the firepower we can bring to bear in the minds of the rest of the world, and to ensure that we make it abundantly clear that we will not tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists or terrorist supporters.
If they did, why no declaration of war?
The CIA director-acting said something big was coming. Could this report be that???
If we could take out the Guardian Council with an airstrike, if this evidence proves real, would that have the effect of taking out the theocracy itself?
didn't the US just launch a VOA in Persian aimed at Iran??
The CFR is just another establishment, read "blinkered", Washington organ used by the chattering class to reinforce their own misguided views of the world.
It's staffed by State Dept. retreads, who shouldn't have been hired to do diplomacy in the first place.
If anyone wants to know how intimately involved the government of Iran was in the Khobar Towers bombing, or the '95 bombing in Dharan, they should read up on what Louis Freeh has been doing since he was involuntarily forced to leave the FBI.
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