Free Republic

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers received training in encryption techniques at an al Qaeda camp in Iran in 1997, an Iranian defector said on Friday. But his testimony to a German court was promptly undercut by comments from Germany's intelligence services, who questioned his credibility and said his evidence was worth very little. Hamid Reza Zakeri, the cover name of a man who says he worked in Iranian intelligence and defected in 2001, was testifying toward the end of Germany's second major trial of suspected members of al Qaeda's Hamburg cell....

Hamburg, Germany - A Moroccan man accused of helping set up the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, was acquitted yesterday by a Hamburg court whose chief judge said the trial had been seriously complicated by lack of access to intelligence agency files and al-Qaida members in U.S. custody. Defendant Abdelghani Mzoudi was found not guilty "even though intelligence services may have information against him," chief judge Klaus Ruehle said. "One of the main problems in this trial was that it was not possible to get files from intelligence services." snip Mzoudi is only the second person anywhere to be tried...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court postponed on Wednesday the verdict on a Moroccan accused of aiding the Sept. 11 attackers after prosecutors said they had found a new witness, casting doubt on his expected acquittal. The Hamburg court where Abdelghani Mzoudi is on trial said that the verdict would not now be issued Thursday as expected after a request from prosecutors to hear evidence from two police officials about a new witness. "Federal prosecutors sent to the court today a substantial transcript dated January 19 regarding the questioning of a witness whose reliability is guaranteed and who would incriminate...

The Obama administration finally highlights Iran’s key role in supporting al Qaeda On July 28, the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda operatives involved in shipping money and men from the Persian Gulf to senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The move targets a node of the global terror network that is critical to its overall strength, freezing any of its financial assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting any transactions with the operatives. Of the many conduits for al Qaeda funds and personnel across the world, the U.S. government believes this one is the most important. “This network...

A new lawsuit raises the possibility of Tehran's complicity in al Qaeda's infamous attacks. Philip Shenon reports fresh details on who will testify—and the mysteries they could unlock. With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looming, a federal lawsuit in Manhattan offers the possibility of resolving a central mystery about the attacks: Was Iran involved? Former investigators on the 9/11 Commission, which uncovered tantalizing but inconclusive evidence of Tehran's ties to the plot, tell The Daily Beast they welcome the lawsuit, because they believe the U.S. government has done little to follow up on the commission's evidence of Iranian...

Former British PM Tony Blair testified in front of another Iraq inquiry today and for the second time this year he testified about the very real danger of Iran and al-Qaeda working together. Of course the storyline by the British papers, the biased MSM, and the lefty blogosphere, is regarding the regret offered by Blair over the loss of life: At the end of his evidence this afternoon he said it had never been his meaning. "Of course I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life," I'm sure everyone else would cheer the loss of life huh? I...

During the designation announcement, Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levey noted, "It is important that Iran give a public accounting of how it is meeting its international obligations to constrain al-Qaeda." For the Obama administration, understanding the complicated relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda will be key as Washington begins to forge a new path in dealing with Tehran. Iran's Ties to al-Qaeda Before September 11 Links between al-Qaeda and Iran are not new and have developed over time. Ties between the two first blossomed during the early 1990s when al-Qaeda was based in Sudan. Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of Sudan's National Islamic...

One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure. That is a consensus judgment from a final working draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate, titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland," on the organization that attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The estimate, which represents the opinion of America's intelligence agencies, is now finished, and unclassified conclusions will be shared today with the public. The classified document...

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., knew the United States was a terrorist target before the Sept. 11 attacks because of a secret source — “Ali” — but the CIA refused to listen, the congressman writes in a new book. In “Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information That Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America . . . and How the CIA Has Ignored It,” Weldon details intelligence secrets “Ali” has provided and warns that Iran, not al Qaeda, is the United States’ biggest enemy, according to the book’s description on Amazon.com. The 256-page book, published by Regnery Publishing, will be...

The final report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, concludes that al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran and its client, the Hezbollah militant group, was far deeper and more long-standing than its links with Iraq, which never established operational ties with the terrorist group, Dan Eggen and Mike Allen write in the Washington Post,” quoting officials familiar with the report, which is expected to be announced on Thursday. “Among the newest findings is evidence, disclosed in media reports this week, that as many as 10 of the Sept. 11 hijackers transited through Iran before the hijackings,” they add.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has arrested a number of Iranian supporters of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, the country's intelligence minister was quoted as saying by state television on Saturday. "Iran's intelligence apparatus has identified and arrested small Iranian deviate branches of the al Qaeda group," state television quoted minister Ali Yunesi as saying. It did not elaborate or specify how many were detained. Washington accuses Iran of harboring and collaborating with al Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, a charge Tehran denies. Yunesi warned Iran would take a tough line against...

In its report due next week, the September 11 commission will disclose new evidence suggesting Iranian government officials may have helped facilitate the terror attacks by providing Al Qaeda members with safe passage and “clean” passports as they traveled from Osama bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan through Iran, NEWSWEEK has learned.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it would not hand over any detained members of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network to Washington and denied trying to strike a prisoner exchange deal with the United States.   Iran publicly acknowledged for the first time last month that it was holding some senior al Qaeda figures and said it planned to extradite some of them to "friendly countries." On Saturday the New York Times quoted a U.S. official as saying Washington had approached Tehran with a request to hand over al Qaeda men in Iranian custody,...