[DoctorZIn]

Terrorism: Al Qaeda’s Men in Iran

By Mark Hosenball and Babak Dehghanpisheh
NEWSWEEK

Aug. 4 issue — As U.S. troops try to fend off “guerrilla” attacks in Iraq, American spies and diplomats are increasingly preoccupied with a scary group of Qaeda operatives in neighboring Iran. Last week Ali Younesi, Tehran’s intelligence minister, confirmed that a “large number” of Qaeda personnel are presently in his country. Younesi claimed the terror suspects were “in custody.” U.S. officials believe that the suspects include some of America’s Most Wanted: Saad bin Laden, Osama’s son and possible successor; Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti who surfaced as one of Al Qaeda’s top media “spokesmen” after 9/11; Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian alleged by Colin Powell to be a key link between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and possibly Saif Al-Adel, once Al Qaeda’s military and security chief. Also believed to be in Iran are deputy leaders of two key Egyptian Qaeda affiliates, Islamic Jihad (headed by bin Laden side-kick Ayman Al-Zawahiri, still thought to be in hiding with bin Laden on the Afghan-Pakistani border) and Jemaah Islamiah, headed by Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheik” held by the United States for plotting attacks in New York. Some U.S. officials believe that some of these suspects, including bin Laden Jr. and the Egyptians, really are in Iranian custody, but administration hard-liners believe Iranian authorities leave some of them free enough to hatch new terror plots.

THE UNITED STATES would love to get its hands on the suspects, but relations with Iran have been fractured since the 1979 hostage crisis. U.S. officials are now working quietly with allies on deals to transfer suspects to third countries and then eventually into American hands. In early July Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of Iran’s judiciary, visited Saudi Arabia, where he met with the king and crown prince. Around the same time, according to some sources, authorities in Riyadh decided to strip Saad bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship, making it easier for the Iranians not to turn him over to his native country. Meanwhile, Kuwait announced that it had declined an Iranian offer to turn over Abu Ghaith, who was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship after 9/11. These moves could pave the way for Iranians to expel the suspects to countries other than their homelands.
Any hush-hush diplomatic arrangements regarding the terror suspects could be sabotaged by hard-liners in either the United States or Iran. Some Washington activists with ties to administration conservatives last week alleged that Iranian officials may have been caught by authorities in Belgium and Germany trying to obtain nuclear material from the Congo. State Department officials say that because Iran is partly democratic, they don’t want to write off possible negotiations over terrorists. But hard-liners want the Bush administration to support political movements in Tehran that seek to overthrow the fundamentalists who control Iran’s security and intelligence agencies.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/944687.asp

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[DoctorZIn]

Random Checks on Iran Nuclear Sites Years Away

July 27, 2003
AFP
The Peninsula

TEHRAN -- Random inspections of Iran's nuclear sites are still years away even if Tehran accepted an additional Non-Proloiferation Treaty protocol, a parliamentary deputy told the student news agency Insa yesterday.

Reformist MP Mohsen Mirdamadi and head of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee said: "Accepting the protocol does not mean that we are obliged to execute it tomorrow, the negotiations over the acceptance of the protocol can take a long time, even several years.

"The countries that intend to accept the protocol must start negotiations with IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Authority) and reach agreement on its regulations. This is a complicated task and will take some time, for some countries it has taken up to three years," he added.

Mirdamadi defended the acceptance of the NPT protocol that allows spot checks and said: "Considering the present international situation, if we don't accept the protocol, the international pressures on us will increase seriously, this must be considered by the regime and the appropriate decision must be made".

Iran has asked the IAEA to send a team of legal experts, expected in Tehran in the next few days, to brief the authorities on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty protocol, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers expressed "increasing concern" over Iran's nuclear programme and warned it would review relations with Tehran unless it cooperated fully with the UN's nuclear watchdog agency. Iran's foreign ministry rejected Tuesday any conditions or threats.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=July2003&file=World_News200307271523.xml

[F14 Pilot]

Three more journalists arrested in Iran -
07/26/03


Three more Iranian journalists have been arrested, press reports said Saturday. A wave of recent arrests has targeted the reformist press, since an outburst of virulent anti-regime protests in mid-June and July. The latest arrests bring to 27 the number of journalists believed currently to be detained in prison in Iran. Since 2000, Iranian authorities have suspended the publication of nearly 100 papers, most from the pro-reform camp.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/latest/fullnews.php?id=684

[nuconvert]

So now, according to Newsweek, it's Bush and his "hardliners" against Iranian "hardliners".

How they think there's some kind of equivalency in using that term is (almost) bewildering . Apparently it's due to their belief that it's just one "hardline" regime against another. They never overlook an opportunity to use a pejorative term against Bush.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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