Newsweek scoop: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the would-be 9/11 terrorist now in US custody, flew from Amsterdam to Tehran in January 2001, en route to meet 9/11 plot planners in Afghanistan. What's more, this next bit, if true, would certainly suggest Iranian leaders were aware of plans for the 9/11 attacks:

Commission sources acknowledge they have been unable to resolve key questions about what precisely the 9/11 plotters did while they transited through Iran and, in particular, whether they were receiving active assistance from Iranian security officials, who appear to have maintained relations with Al Qaeda. But investigators say there is mounting evidence about Al Qaeda-Iranian relationships that appear to have been overlooked by a Bush administration that was far more focused on finding connections between bin Laden’s organization and the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Indeed, during the trial of another alleged Hamburg cell member, Abdelghani Mzoudi, prosecutors produced a last-minute witness, Hamid Reza Zakeri, who said he was a former officer of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Zakeri testified there was a meeting at an airbase near Tehran on May 4, 2001, between top Iranian leaders—including supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani—and one of Osama bin Laden's elder sons, Saad, at which plans for 9/11 were discussed.

Zakeri also reportedly claimed he had earlier helped arrange security for a January 2001 meeting between Saad bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's principal deputy. He also claimed that he met with a CIA officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, in July 2001 and passed on a warning to the United States about the forthcoming 9/11 attacks.

U.S. and German authorities have never been able to corroborate Zakeri's claims about the involvement of top Iranian officials, and some officials have questioned his credibility. German government efforts to use Zakeri as a witness against Mzoudi proved ineffective; the defendant, unlike the previously convicted Motassadeq, was acquitted of charges of being an accomplice to the 9/11 hijackers.

But U.S. officials say they are concerned about the increasing evidence of possible Iranian connections to the 9/11 attacks, noting that as many as 10 top Al Qaeda operatives, including Saad bin Laden and another top bin Laden deputy, Said Al-Adel, fled to Iran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. The Al Qaeda operatives are believed to be in some sort of government custody, most likely house arrest. But the Iranian government has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. entreaties to turn over the Al Qaeda leaders, and some U.S. intelligence officials believe they may be still supervising terror operations—especially in Saudi Arabia—through the use of couriers. “This is an evolving story,” said one U.S. official about the evidence of possible Iranian ties to Al Qaeda.

It surely is an evolving story. Of course, history with the likes of Chalabi, some INC defectors, etc. has taught us we can't trust every word of everyone who does a little information sharing with the Vevak. But who knows? Maybe this was a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Iran was reportedly implicated in the Khobar Towers bombing, and a back channel dialogue involving US and Iranian officials was supposedly broken off last May after US intelligence came to believe al Qaeda plotters based in Iran had helped plan the May 13, 2003 al Qaeda attacks in Riyadh.

My colleague points out that this Newsweek piece is using the 9/11 commission report Iran findings as a peg for reports from German intelligence and the Mzoudi trial that have been out there for a while.

Posted by Laura at July 21, 2004 04:16 PM