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Defector: Bin Laden Son âForewarned Iran of 9/11â
EFL:An Iranian defector, preparing to testify in Germanyâs second major Sept. 11 trial, said on Tuesday that a son of Osama bin Laden had personally told Iranian leaders of the planned attacks on U.S. cities in 2001. The defector, who goes by the cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, told Reuters in a telephone interview that al Qaeda had forewarned Tehran of the attacks because it wanted Iranâs help in sheltering its leaders afterwards. "Iâm not saying that Iran had a hand in it (Sept. 11). Iâm saying that Iran knew about it," Zakeri said. Thatâs less involvement than first reported, and more believable. "Iran would be the safest place for al Qaeda because it wasnât a country where the U.S. could directly or indirectly intervene" to seize al Qaeda leaders on the run after the planned attacks, he added. Iâm sure thatâs what they thought before Afghanistan and Iraq. Zakeri says he is a former intelligence official who defected in July 2001 and tried to warn the United States, through its embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, that a major attack would take place on or about Sept. 10. The more we learn about the CIA, the more this seems likely. The Iranian foreign minister, asked about the defectorâs assertions, told a news conference on Tuesday: "This is untrue. He has made up this information... he has made it up for fraudulent purposes. He wants to make money and his views are of no value." "Lies, all lies!" Western intelligence sources have privately voiced skepticism about Zakeriâs accusations, but German prosecutors have taken them seriously enough to call him as a key trial witness. Thatâs interesting in itself. Speaking by mobile phone from an undisclosed location, Zakeri said he had handled security arrangements in January 2001 for a visit of about 30 al Qaeda members to Iran, led by Osama bin Ladenâs deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zakeri said he had previously seen Zawahiri several times since 1996 at camps used by the militant group Hizbollah in Iran. The talks took place southeast of Tehran, lasted four days and were headed on the Iranian side by a representative of Iranâs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said. Four months later, in May 2001, Zakeri said he had been ordered to collect a VIP delegation arriving by army helicopter at a special base east of the Iranian capital. This time the guest was Osamaâs son Saad bin Laden, accompanied by three bodyguards. Zakeri said the visit lasted three days and included late-night talks with Khamenei, ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and three other top leaders. If we have any kind of intel capability in Iran, we should at least have a rumor of some kind of meeting in this time frame. Zakeri said he was not part of the discussions and not privy to details of the Sept. 11 plot or the targets, but added: "I knew in general that there was an operation being prepared against Israel and the United States for September 10." He said he passed a warning to a CIA official in Baku, but "they didnât take me seriously." A good CIA agent would have made a report on the fact that some one had passed on a warning even if the source was discounted. Of course, a really good agent will have shredded the report by now and denied it ever happened. Doesnât look good on the old resume, donât you know. Zakeri said he had not wanted to testify in the Mzoudi case, but had been drawn in after telling German investigators he had received information by email from someone else relating to al Qaeda activity in Germany. He said he was under close German police protection after contacts in Iran had warned him his life was in danger. "They said: âThey sent the people already, and they are very close to the door.â I know what that means. It means they are very close to kill me. But already I informed the German authorities and the German police... Iâm all right, hopefully Iâm safe," he said. I hope so too. This guy needs to be debriefed and his story checked by someone other than the CIA. Posted by: Steve 2004-01-27 |
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