Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...



Iran Helped Bin Laden's Lieutenant al-Zawahiri Escape

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 123 Aug. 22

September 8, 2003, 8:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran consistently denies ever having sheltered or hidden Osama bin Laden's
top lieutenant and operations ace, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the group of al
Qaeda leaders present in the country. This assertion is wide of the truth.
The Islamic Republic did in fact hide the bespectacled Egyptian medical
doctor for close on a year. He was granted sanctuary, a base of operation
and finally provided with a safe getaway route - as discovered by
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's most reliable exclusive sources.

Two years after the September 11 terrorist horrors in New York, Washington
and Pennsylvania, Zawahiri's importance as a linchpin and live wire of the
al Qaeda network and badly wanted quarry of American special forces and
intelligence agents.

His capture is as crucial to the United States global war on terror as the
apprehension of Bin Laden himself or Saddam Hussein.

The Iranians looked after him very well. Last month, as the hunt drew near,
they helped Zawahiri stay a step ahead of his pursuers and leave the country
by a secret tortuous route. DEBKA-Net-Weekly learns that Iranian
intelligence agents were personally ordered by Iranian intelligence minister
Hojatoleslam Ali Younesi to spirit the wanted terrorist chief, disguised as
an Iranian Shiite cleric out of his hiding place and across into Turkey.
Travelers from Iran are not required to show passports at the Turkish
frontier. An Iranian spy cell buried in Turkey waited for him and conducted
him to one of their own safe houses. There he stayed for two or three days
before moving on to an unknown destination.

Zawahiri is as intent on keeping al Qaeda's terror campaign alive as of
keeping his head down. Our al Qaeda watchers therefore point to his two most
likely destinations: The Ferghana Valley, a lawless territory ruled by Al
Qaeda that straddles Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and China; or the wild Pankisi
Gorge badland on the Chechen-Georgian border. Iranian intelligence would be
able to prepare the absconding terrorist mastermind's welcome in the latter
place through its active channels of communication with Chechen rebels and
Saudi Al Qaeda fighters focusing on Chechnya and its environs. At the
Pankisi Gorge, Zawahiri would have moved on to his next stop helped by many
helping hands in his own movement.

Some made their escape there in late May, when Tehran plotted the flight of
some of the al Qaeda perpetrators of the massive bombings in foreigners'
compounds in Riyadh on May 19. Flouting insistent Saudi and American demands
to hand the wanted men over, Iranian intelligence gave them transportation
and money to smooth their way as far as the Pankisi Gorge.

Reporting from exclusive sources in Tehran, DEBKA-Net-Weekly has learned
that, a day or two after Zawahiri left Iran, a tense tug-o'-war took place
between Iranian intelligence ministry officers and Iranian Revolutionary
Guardsmen over control of a group of al Qaeda terrorists. They confronted
each other at an airport in the northern Iranian city of Mahabad in Iranian
Kurdistan.

Eight senior al Qaeda operatives were known to have been harbored in Tehran
as recently as mid-August. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia, as
DEBKA-Net-Weekly has reported, have a list of 60 names of Al Qaeda
operations officers in the Islamic Republic.

Three of those terrorists were the prize fought over by the two armed
Iranian factions.

A large Revolutionary Guards contingent was about to put them on an unmarked
plane parked near a side runway with its engines running to extradite them
to Saudi Arabia, the start of their deportation to their countries of
origin, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Suddenly, the Iranian Guardsmen were surrounded by a larger contingent of
Iranian intelligence ministry officers, who demanded custody of all three Al
Qaeda men. A second group of officers had meanwhile boarded the plane and
ordered the pilot to switch off the engines. At one point in the four-hour
standoff, according to our Iranian sources, guns were drawn and threats
made. But the officers from the Tehran ministry issued a 15-minute ultimatum
to hand the terrorists over or else they would open fire. The Revolutionary
Guards backed down.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources report that this was the third time
Guards had been frustrated in attempt to send some senior Al Qaeda
operatives back to their respective home countries.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and counter-terrorism sources believe that
one of the three terrorists was Saif al-Adel, number three in the Al Qaeda
hierarchy and the group's military commander. Last month, the CIA determined
that al Adel, like Zawahiri an Egyptian national, had been in Iranian
custody for some three weeks. They have been searching for him for ten
years, since the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia in 1993 in which 18
Americans were killed. He is suspected of having commanded a Al Qaeda unit
fighting in Mogadishu at the time.

Now, he is named as mastermind of the Riyadh bomb blasts and was on the
point of being flown out to Saudi Arabia when the Intelligence minister
Younesi had managed to block the extradition while also spotlighting a deep
division in the Islamic Republic's ruling regime.

Shortly after the airport confrontation, we learn that Moshen Razai, chef de
bureau of the still powerful former president Hashem Rafsanjani, sent an
encrypted report on the incident to members of his faction in the
Revolutionary Guards command. He posted it over his private, closed personal
website, which DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources were able to access.
At the end of the message, Razai wrote: "There are still elements within
Iran's intelligence services who are protecting Al Qaeda adherents and will
do anything to prevent their extradition to Arab countries and thwart any
progress towards better relations with them."

Razai is himself a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. His boss,
Rafsanjani, is thought to be the most influential of any Iranian leader
among the Guards.

The next move came about several hours later from Imad al-Parsa, a close
associate of Rafsanjani and Razai. He summoned his own inner circle,
including a large number of senior Revolutionary Guards officers and told
them: "The same elements that executed the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in
Teheran and took its diplomatic staff hostage, thereby foredooming Iran to
bad relations with the West for a generation, are at work again."

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Iran analysts learn from this episode that the attempt to
use al Qaeda as an instrument of terror and bargaining chip to gain a
respite to develop nuclear weapons has landed Tehran in hot water with
regard to the regime's internal cohesion.

The clerical leaders are now split down the middle.




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Gould 0738 wrote:
Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...


Uh, that's supposed to be billion, with a "b". 87 million gets us through what,
a couple of days?



$87 million, just a fraction of $87 billion, would have paid for a
four-year college education for about 5,000 inner-city kids, many of
whom would turn out to be significant contributors to society as
teachers, nurses, social workers, librarians, small business owners, and
much more.

We'll be spending much more than $87 billion on Iraq, and we won't have
dick to show for it, except, of course, a lot of body bags.


--
* * *
email sent to will *never* get to me.

Thanks for the correction. Who cares, anyhow. It's not *my* money. No,
wait a minute, I guess it is...



"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...


Uh, that's supposed to be billion, with a "b". 87 million gets us through
what,
a couple of days?

"NOYB" wrote in message
link.net...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

$87 million, just a fraction of $87 billion, would have paid for a
four-year college education for about 5,000 inner-city kids, many of
whom would turn out to be significant contributors to society as
teachers, nurses, social workers, librarians, small business owners, and
much more.

But then from where would we get our rap stars, drug dealers, and pro
athletes?


And that's your reaction to common sense?

Very impressive.

They're in the pipe, be patient.
JR

NOYB wrote:

Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...

Iran Helped Bin Laden's Lieutenant al-Zawahiri Escape

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 123 Aug. 22

September 8, 2003, 8:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran consistently denies ever having sheltered or hidden Osama bin Laden's
top lieutenant and operations ace, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the group of al
snip
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth

"NOYB" wrote in message
link.net...
Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...



Iran Helped Bin Laden's Lieutenant al-Zawahiri Escape

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 123 Aug. 22

September 8, 2003, 8:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran consistently denies ever having sheltered or hidden Osama bin Laden's
top lieutenant and operations ace, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the group of
al
Qaeda leaders present in the country. This assertion is wide of the truth.
The Islamic Republic did in fact hide the bespectacled Egyptian medical
doctor for close on a year. He was granted sanctuary, a base of operation
and finally provided with a safe getaway route - as discovered by
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's most reliable exclusive sources.


I was listening to one of the news channels last night. One of the RW
former Generals said that we had already deployed somewhere around 70% of
our total available troops to the mid-east and elsewhere. Given the
situation in N. Korea, he said that we were at the edge of our ability to
commit troops and it's not be possible to pull troops from Iraq.

Where the hell do you see us getting new bodies to deploy to Iran?

More importantly, when will "conservatives" reconnect with common sense?

Will another tax cut help?

Where the hell do you see us getting new bodies to deploy to Iran?



The next version of the Patriot Act might reinstate the draft.

Post-election day full scale invasion?


"JR North" wrote in message
...
They're in the pipe, be patient.
JR

NOYB wrote:

Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...

Iran Helped Bin Laden's Lieutenant al-Zawahiri Escape

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 123 Aug. 22

September 8, 2003, 8:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran consistently denies ever having sheltered or hidden Osama bin
Laden's
top lieutenant and operations ace, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the group of
al
snip
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth

"NOYB" wrote in message hlink.net...
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Gould 0738 wrote:
Maybe this is what the extra $87 million is for...


Uh, that's supposed to be billion, with a "b". 87 million gets us
through what,
a couple of days?



$87 million, just a fraction of $87 billion, would have paid for a
four-year college education for about 5,000 inner-city kids, many of
whom would turn out to be significant contributors to society as
teachers, nurses, social workers, librarians, small business owners, and
much more.

But then from where would we get our rap stars, drug dealers, and pro
athletes?

Wow, you actually ENJOY showing people just how shallow and ignorant you are.