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Iran in Secret Talks with Al-Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say

[ABC News] Jonathan Karl - Senior U.S. officials say that in recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al-Qaeda. The contacts are on the status of high-level al-Qaeda operatives who have been under house arrest in Iran since 2003. Intelligence analysts say the group in Iran includes al-Qaeda's management council, or "shura," and numbers about two dozen militants, including Egyptian Saif al-Adel, al-Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith and some of bin Laden's relatives, including two of his sons, Saad and Hamza. Adel is on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists and is a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The State Department has put a $5 million bounty on his head. U.S. officials say one reason they have not raised the issue of turning these al-Qaeda figures over to their native countries for interrogation and trial more publicly is that they believe Iran has largely kept them under control since 2003. "It's been a status quo that leaves these people, some of whom are quite important, essentially on ice," said a U.S. official. One senior U.S. official said, "al-Qaeda [is] very much interested in trying to get these guys released and back in the fold...with Iran playing strategic games knowing that al-Qaeda is ultimately their enemy."
2008-05-30 01:00:00
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