Saudi Official Says Key Al Qaeda Figures in Iran
Tue August 12, 2003 04:59 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several key al Qaeda members, including the security chief and Osama bin Laden's son, are in Iran, which has not responded to a request by Saudi Arabia to hand over any of its citizens among them, a senior Saudi official said on Tuesday.
He said those in Iran included: Saad bin Laden, an older son of the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader; Egyptian Saif al-Adel, believed to be the network's security chief; Kuwait-born Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, al Qaeda's spokesman; and Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has suspected al Qaeda ties and is accused of plotting the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Amman last year.
"We are very much confident, actually, that those names are there as well as others," the Saudi official told a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity.
"We are aware that there are at least another 10 or 12 major Qaeda fish ... as well as many others who could be supporters," he said, without identifying the others. "We know they are in safe houses under Iranian control."
Iran had "total control" over the al Qaeda members in the sense that "they won't be able to pack and leave let's say without Iranians knowing about it," the official said.
"We don't know if they can still engage in terrorist activities," he added.
Al Qaeda, led by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, has been blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed about 3,000 people.
STILL AWAITING A RESPONSE
Saudi Arabia has asked Iran to hand over Saudi nationals among that group but has not received a response.
The last time the issue was raised on a senior level was during Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal's visit to Iran in June when he met with Iran's President, Mohammad Khatami, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, and other officials, the Saudi official said. "And we have yet to hear back from them," he said.
Before Prince Saud's visit, Saudi Arabia sent a team to Iran to help identify any Saudis among the al Qaeda members, but they were not given access to them, the Saudi official said.
He would not comment on whether the United States knew the identities of the al Qaeda members in Iran, but said that there was information-sharing between Saudi and U.S. authorities.
"If they don't know exactly who every Tom, Dick and Harry who is there, we have a good idea," the Saudi official said.
Iran said last month it was holding several key members of al Qaeda who had fled from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but denied U.S. accusations that it has been harboring them, saying it has arrested and deported more than 500 suspects in the past year. It refused to name those it is holding.
Earlier this week, Iran said it planned to try any al Qaeda members it cannot extradite. "If their citizenship is not clear and no country will accept them, then ... they will be tried in Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Monday.
Saudi officials had been "optimistic" about a resolution to the issue around the time of Prince Saud's visit to Iran, "but we are losing our patience," the Saudi official said.
"We feel that we would be willing to wait up to a point to be honest with you and then we have to see where do we go then," the official said. "We would want this issue to be solved."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=3266439