Saudi Says Iran Drags Feet Returning Al Qaeda Leaders
August 12, 2003
The Washington Post
John Mintz
As many as 15 al Qaeda leaders and operatives are currently in Iran, but Tehran is dragging its feet in responding to requests from Arab governments to repatriate the accused terrorists for interrogation and trial, a senior Saudi official said yesterday.
Among the al Qaeda members being held in what Iranian officials describe as "safe houses" are Saad bin Laden, who was being groomed to succeed his father, Osama bin Laden, as al Qaeda's leader, and Saif Adel, an Egyptian described by U.S. officials as the terrorist network's security chief, said the Saudi counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified.
"Iran has been giving us the runaround" about the al Qaeda personnel in that country, and for months Iranian officials denied knowing their identities, the Saudi official said.
Yesterday's briefing for reporters was part of a wide-ranging attempt by Riyadh to demonstrate that it is working closely with Washington on counterterrorist initiatives, including attempts to win concessions from Tehran. Saudi officials have ratcheted up their public relations efforts in the weeks since a congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks suggested that Saudi figures have helped finance worldwide terrorism -- an assertion that the Saudi government strongly denies.
The Saudi official pointed out that in recent days FBI agents in Riyadh have been given full access to Ali al Ghamdi, al Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, who was arrested in June and has been accused of planning the May 12 suicide bombings that killed 34 people, including nine Americans. "It's another sign of our cooperation," the Saudi official said. In past years, U.S. investigators complained bitterly that Saudi officials had barred them from interviewing terrorism suspects jailed in the desert kingdom.
The Saudi official said that in addition to Saad bin Laden and Adel, other al Qaeda members in Iran include Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the terrorist network's spokesman whose Kuwaiti citizenship was revoked by that government, and Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian and prominent terrorist operative who hid in Baghdad last year after being wounded in the war in Afghanistan.
The younger bin Laden, who is 23 or 24, is one of the oldest of Osama bin Laden's many children. He lived with his father for five years in Sudan until they were expelled by the government there, and moved al Qaeda's headquarters to Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials have said for almost a year that Saad was in Iran, and there have been periodic reports that the Iranians had deported him.
From Iran, Adel helped coordinate the synchronized attack on three residential compounds in Riyadh in May, according to U.S. and allied intelligence officials. The possibility that Adel could have planned the attacks while under the control of Iran has angered Riyadh and Washington.
The Saudi official yesterday echoed questions raised by U.S. officials about whether the al Qaeda members are being treated as captives or guests by Iranian officials. "That's the million-dollar question," he said. "They're in a place where Iranians are totally in control. . . . But are they engaging in [terrorist] missions? We don't know."
The real question is which Iranian officials control them. Iranian intelligence officials and leaders of the radical Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have struck periodic alliances with al Qaeda over the years, while reformist Iranian officials have publicly denounced the idea of providing safe haven for bin Laden's fighters.
Saudi officials are trying to persuade Tehran to hand over the seven or eight Saudis among the al Qaeda members in Iran, the official said. The Egyptian and Algerian governments are also demanding that their citizens be turned over, he said. Kuwait has said it does not want Ghaith.
The U.S. government has no diplomatic relations with Iran, but has made clear to Tehran through intermediaries that it wants them extradited here or to other friendly nations. "We've made our concerns very clear to Iran that they should be turned over," State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said last week.
The Saudi official said a 10-person al Qaeda cell captured in Riyadh yesterday after a shootout with police is tied to a London-based Saudi dissident who opposes the royal family, Saad al Faqih. Few allegations have surfaced tying him to terrorism in the past, and he could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Meanwhile, Riyadh has concluded that Omar Bayoumi, a Saudi who befriended and aided two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in California in 2000 has no tie to terrorists, the official said. Bayoumi, a former accountant for the Saudi aviation ministry, has been interviewed three times by the FBI in recent days. The report on the Sept. 11 attacks by Congress's intelligence committees recommended that Bayoumi's role be investigated further.
The officials also noted that the Saudis extradited to the United States three members of a group of Muslim activists recently indicted in Northern Virginia for taking part in a conspiracy to support "violent jihad" by members of a Kashmiri movement designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. The Saudis spent months helping to develop the case with Washington, he said.
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