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| US probes Iran links to Saudi blasts |
| 2003-05-15 |
| EFL US intelligence agencies are investigating whether senior al-Qaeda leaders hiding in Iran may have helped to plan or coordinate the terrorist bombings that killed at least 34 people in Saudi Arabia on Monday. Intelligence officials said several al-Qaeda leaders, including Saif al-Adel, who's wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa and may now be the terrorist group's third-ranking official, and Osama bin Laden's son Saad have found refuge in Iran, where they remain active. The Iranian government has expelled more than 500 lower-ranking al-Qaeda members and denies harbouring any of the group's senior leaders. But the US officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there was evidence that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard were sheltering al Adel, the younger bin Laden, other al-Qaeda leaders and some other members of bin Laden's family. The officials emphasised that no hard evidence has been found that al-Qaeda fugitives in Iran had a hand in the Saudi bombings. But the suspicions have given a new urgency to United Nations-sponsored talks between White House aide Zalmay Khalilzad and Iranian officials in Geneva. If the CIA or other intelligence agencies find evidence confirming suspicions that the Saudi bombings were planned or supported from Iran, one senior US official warned today, the conversation with Iran "could become a confrontation." The suspicions of a link between Iran and the bombings are focused largely on al Adel, who some US officials think is now the head of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf. Some officials think that Khaled Jehani, the leader of the al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia that is suspected of carrying out the attacks, began reporting to al Adel after former gulf operations chief Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri was captured last November. Nashiri is now in US custody. Other officials, however, think Jehani may have taken over from Nashiri and also is running the Saudi Arabian cell, which Saudi intelligence officials think may have had more than 100 members, on his own. Interesting |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Iraq: check. Next? |
| Posted by: Kathy K 2003-05-15 18:30:37 |