Iran a refuge for al-Qaida, European investigators say

By Sebastian Rotella
Los Angeles Times

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Investigations in France, Italy, Spain and other countries since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks point to an increasing presence in Iran of al-Qaida figures, including the suspected masterminds of this year's train bombings in Madrid and last year's car bombings of expatriate compounds in Saudi Arabia. But Iran's complex politics and secretive policies have made it difficult to determine the nature of any relationship between Iranian officials and the terror network, investigators say.

The potential ties between Iran and al-Qaida drew attention last month with the release of the final report of the Sept. 11 commission. The U.S. panel found that eight of the hijackers had traveled through Iran. However, the report did not produce much evidence of an al-Qaida-Iran alliance before the 2001 attacks.

What concerns Western law-enforcement officials, however, is the post-Sept. 11 menace posed by al-Qaida, including its involvement in Iraq and deadly attacks in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. As Osama bin Laden's movement has reconfigured since 2001, Iran has become an intermittent refuge for kingpins who have gained stature and autonomy while bin Laden has faded from the limelight, European officials say.

"The Iranians play a double game," said a top French law-enforcement official who, like others interviewed, asked to remain anonymous. "Everything they can do to trouble the Americans, without going too far, they do it. They have arrested important al-Qaida people, but they have permitted other important al-Qaida people to operate. It is a classic Iranian style of ambiguity, deception, manipulation."

Iran has insisted it has dismantled any terror networks in its territory. "Iran has no affinity with Taliban and al-Qaida, and Iran has proven it by words and acts," Hamid Reza Asseif, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said recently.

Any Iranian support of al-Qaida remains indirect and limited, investigators believe, because of fundamental differences between bin Laden's Sunni Muslim movement and the Shiite regime in Tehran, the Iranian capital.

Some experts also distinguish between Iran's comparatively moderate political leadership and its hard-line security forces, particularly the Revolutionary Guard, which functions as a "state within a state," according to a London-based analyst.

"When the Iranian government says it is not dealing with al-Qaida, it is telling the truth," said Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institutes, a think tank affiliated with the British Defense Ministry.

"It's not the government — it's the Revolutionary Guard. We are talking about an ideological army, not just an intelligence service, and the politicians really have no power over them. There is some sort of tactical alliance with al-Qaida in which the Revolutionary Guard turns a blind eye toward the activity in Iran."

Al-Qaida figures who allegedly have operated in Iran, according to court documents and investigators in Europe, include Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian seen as a leader of the Iraq insurgency and a broader international network; Saif Adel, an Egyptian regarded as al-Qaida's military chief; and Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a veteran Spanish-Syrian holy warrior seen by Spanish police as a possible mastermind of the Madrid attacks.
 
Although bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman Zawahari, are believed to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands, other core leaders found shelter in Iran after fleeing from the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan in late 2001, according to officials.

Some European experts accept the Iranian argument that the presence of militants is confined mostly to vast border areas that are hard to control. And Iran has arrested prominent figures such as bin Laden's son Saad, according to the top French anti-terror official.

Yet Iran has offered little information about the status of suspects including Saad bin Laden and al-Qaida military chief Adel, a former Egyptian commando. About a year ago, U.S. officials said Iranian forces had Adel in custody, but Iran did not confirm his detention. Reports among counterterror officials suggest Iranian agents allow some leaders "controlled freedom of movement," the French official said.

As al-Qaida geared up three years ago for its offensive on the West, Iran was a busy route to training camps in Afghanistan, investigators say. In a conversation wiretapped by Italian police on March 10, 2001, a member of a terror cell in Milan, Italy, said holy warriors passing through Iran had nothing to fear, according to the transcript in court documents.

"Isn't there a danger in Iran?" asked a Tunisian named Taarek Chaarabi, who later was convicted on terror-related charges.

"No, because there's an organization that takes care of helping the mujahedeen brothers cross the border. There's total collaboration with the Iranians," responded a Libyan named Lased ben Hani.

"Pakistan was the most comfortable route, but in these past years there's too many secret services," ben Hani continued. He said an al-Qaida operative "in Iran receives the brothers and selects them and decides whether to send them to Afghanistan. It's better to go to the Iranian Embassy in London because it's very smooth and then everything's well-organized all the way to the training camps."

The Iranian entry route became an escape route in late 2001. When the U.S. military smashed bin Laden's Afghan sanctuary, dozens of his militants fled into Iran, some with wives and children. Iranian authorities soon arrested and deported many of them, but other suspected terrorists received different treatment, investigators say. Fugitives went to Iran after eluding dragnets in Spain and other European countries, according to investigators and court documents. Others used Iran as a departure point to attempt attacks in Europe, according to investigators and court documents.

Zarqawi, the Iraq-insurgency figure, is believed to have found refuge in Iran, according to French and Spanish officials. In Spanish communications intercepts last year, a fugitive Moroccan suspect, Amer Azizi, said he was "in Iran with Abu Musab Zarqawi," according to Spanish investigators. Police believe Azizi made his way back from Iran to Madrid to play a lead role in the train bombings.

Zarqawi's whereabouts, meanwhile, are a mystery. Some U.S. military officials place him in Iraq at the forefront of the insurgency. French investigators say he moves among Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

"The Iranians have been saying for two years that they have dismantled the networks," said Claude Moniquet, director of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, a Brussels, Belgium, think tank. "But there are people in the European services who think Zarqawi was in Iran until recently. It's a contradictory picture."