Iran has custody of several high-ranking Al Qaeda members, including spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a senior reformist official close to Iran's president said over the weekend.
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Diplomats in Tehran representing three countries also say that, based on their intelligence, Abu Ghaith is among those in custody. The senior Iranian official declined to say how or when Abu Ghaith and the others had been apprehended, or where they were being held. However, diplomats from another country indicated that Abu Ghaith, a native of Kuwait, has been in custody at least since June. Diplomats said they believed the detainees were in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, a region in eastern Iran populated by people sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
What Iran intends to do with those in its custody is complicated by long-standing fractures among the Iranian government factions, including the Ministry of Intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards and the hard-line judiciary. |