The Los Angeles Times reports U.S. intelligence is trying to determine what relationship, if any, there is between the Iranian leadership and the known Al Qaida leaders that reside in the nation. Previous reports indicate there could be up to 25 high-ranking Al Qaida leaders inside Iran that are known to reside inside the nation by the Iranian government. The reports indicate these leaders are either in house-arrest, held up in Revolutionary Guard houses and/or bases or they are allowed to roam somewhat free. Of course Iran denies this.

Some officials, citing evidence from highly classified satellite feeds and electronic eavesdropping, believe the Iranian regime is playing host to much of Al Qaeda’s remaining brain trust and allowing the senior operatives freedom to communicate and help plan the terrorist network’s operations.

And they suggest that recently elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be forging an alliance with Al Qaeda operatives as a way to expand Iran’s influence or, at a minimum, that he is looking the other way as Al Qaeda leaders in his country collaborate with their counterparts elsewhere.

“Iran is becoming more and more radicalized and more willing to turn a blind eye to the Al Qaeda presence there,” a U.S. counter-terrorism official said.

There is no question the appointment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President of Iran has further radicalized the nation, but whether or not he is pandering to Al Qaida is the great unknown. Josh Meyer writing in the LAT says these inquiries into Iran “echo charges that Bush administration figures made about Iraq,” saying they “have been discredited.” I’m not so sure that is the case, and I suspect HARMONY will shed more light into this grey area. One already released document suggests there was more to the Iraq-Al Qaida connection than anyone has ever suggested.

Even so, the topic is Iran. Meyer reports some U.S. intelligence officials believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s repeated public calls for an all-out war against Shiites would cause Iran to keep those Al Qaida leaders in house-arrest. That does make perfect sense considering Iran is a Shia nation. There is though the concept of a marriage of convenience between the two which should be investigated and deciphered if it exists. Throughout the course of history, natural enemies have banded together in times of war. The initial German-Soviet non-aggression pact is a prime example, as is the Allied Powers.

A political analyst at Tehran University does not dismiss reports Iran may be sheltering high-ranking Al Qaida members, but he does say if the Iranian regime is they won’t hand them over because the U.S. is not offering anything in return. This is a reasonable stance to take; not one that is popular for Americans, but reasonable considering the circumstances.

This also plays into one believed reason why Iran has continued to hold the Al Qaida cards they have. One month they dismiss there are Al Qaida members inside Iran, the next they admit they have certain leaders but refuse to hand them over. The way Iran has handled this situation is very familiar with the way it has handled the negotiations over their nuclear program. It may be Iran’s nuclear program they are wishing to use these Al Qaida members as bargaining chips for.

Among them is Saif Adel, believed to be one of the highest-ranking members of Al Qaeda, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri. Whatever restrictions might be placed on the network’s activities within Iran, Adel — who has a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head — was able last year to post a lengthy dispatch about Al Qaeda activities in Iran and Iraq that was widely circulated on the Internet. U.S. intelligence officials consider the posting authentic.

In the dispatch, Adel said he had used hide-outs in Iran to plot with Abu Musab Zarqawi to make Iraq the new battleground in the group’s war against the United States. Iran had detained many of Zarqawi’s men, Adel wrote, but they ultimately slipped into Iraq and began attacking U.S. forces.

U.S. officials say intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda operatives have engaged in at least some terrorist planning from Iran, including Adel’s alleged orchestration of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in May 2003 and the masterminding of several attacks in Europe.

The issue of whether or not Al Qaida and Iran are in cahoots is the worrisome question, not whether Al Qaida members are training on Iranian soil. Hidden training occurs, and has occurred, in several areas accross the globe including in a now-famous mosque in England. The U.S. counter-terrorism official cited numerous times in Meyer’s article though says U.S. intelligence was able to track the movements of Adel via satellite and that Al Qaida leadership has been able to move around inside Iran under the watchful gaze of the Iranian government. Other U.S. officials conclude Zarqawi is known to have traveled into Iran more than once with the “possible knowledge or complicity of Iranian officials.” This investigation, hopefully, is set to either take the possible out of the equation and either confirm or deny any knowledge or complicency.

U.S. officials told Meyer that Abdallah Mohammed Rajab Masri (Abu Khayer) Abdel Aziz Masri and Abu Mohamed Masri are known to be inside Iran. “Authorities believe them to be, respectively, the head of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, a biological weapons expert who heads the network’s effort to develop weapons of mass destruction; and its top explosives expert and training camp chief.” So inside Iran, a nation that is developing in the least a nuclear program, is the Al Qaida leader of developing WMDs and its top explosives expert.

This is why it is very important to know what relationship, if any, there exists between Iran and Al Qaida. The same U.S. counter-terrorism official flatly says “we don’t have any intelligence going on in Iran. No people on the ground.”

More on the marriage of convenience factor:

Though the Sunni-Shiite divide has prompted Tehran in the past to say it had “no affinity” with Al Qaeda, U.S. officials believe there is a history of cooperation between Iran and some Sunni militant groups, including Al Qaeda. Iran nurtures such ties, they say, to enhance its regional influence and punish Arab political foes through intimidation and violence.

Bin Laden sent Adel and others to Iran and Lebanon in the early 1990s to learn bomb making from Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah, the Iran-affiliated militant group, U.S. officials say. They fear he and other Egyptians may still have ties with Iran’s military and intelligence services.

Smoke and mirrors, really. Iran has no problem supporting this Shia group Hezbollah, which does have a connection to the largely Sunni organization Al Qaida. Iran also supports Hamas, which is a Sunni terrorist group. Iran’s reasoning for backing both groups is two-fold. First they want to support groups that object to Israel, perhaps even more so now that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sees it is his role to bring forth the 12th Imam (Islamic end of days scenario), and secondly they want to have more influence in the region. The latter is also one reason why it is believed Iran is developing a nuclear weapon in hopes to persuade the other regimes in the region to bend their way.

The 9/11 Commission concluded there were several ties between Iran and Al Qaida, including Iran allowing safe transport for 8 of the 19 hijackers. The Commission also concluded Iran reached out to Al Qaida to form a closer bond with the group after the bombing of the USS Cole. Meyer reports that possible collaboration has stepped up, including “European wiretaps of militants discussing how Iranian officials would help them or look the other way.” Was this a reference to the previously known Iranian policy of safe passage for Al Qaida members at least prior to 9/11?

Even though I largely dismissed Meyer’s attempt to blemish this news with his erroneous shot on Iraq, he might have a point; that point being that both Democrats and Republicans are in unison.

Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, who receives classified briefings on Iran, said U.S. intelligence indicated that Tehran was engaged in some kind of collaboration with Al Qaeda leaders.

“The cooperation is substantial,” Sherman said. “Key operatives of the most successful terrorist organization in history are spending their time in the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism…. That is of massive concern.”

Prior to the politicization of the war in Iraq, the political consensus in this nation was also bipartisan. Oh how times have changed.

And don’t forget, there are still rumors none other than Osama Bin Laden is inside Iran living on an Iranian military base. It is also known the media wing of Al Qaida operates out of Iran and regularly releases communication, seemingly without the interference of the supposed hostile towards Sunni terrorist groups nation.

The Christian Science Monitor reported back in February 2002 that OBL’s former chef, Haji Mohamad Akram, claimed OBL fled to Iran following his departure from Tora Bora. In the same report, Akram says OBL has close friends in Pakistan “including those working in the field of atomic energy.” Akram told the Christian Science Monitor OBL had three “offers of escape.”

“Osama had three offers of escape,” he says. “One from Iraq, one from Iran, and another from some mafia types…. We received a lot of Iranian currency, and the commanders distributed it to the soldiers,” he says, adding that he received 700,000 rials ($1,400) for his own personal use.”

The Iraqi offer might have been from Zarqawi, to which conventional wisdom today seems to suggest was not aligned with Al Qaida and was not inside Iraq. Yet we know differently. Akram might also be living proof that torture does indeed work to get information from terrorist suspects. Akram has reportedly heavily beaten by his Afghan captors and wanted to be transfered into U.S. hands. This may also explain his story as a fabrication to make him seem more important and knowledgeable than he was.

The story concerning Osama Bin Laden in Iran that I have heard and read in several places is very similar to Akram’s. Rumors indicate OBL fled Tora Bora at night into Waziristan where he hid for a period of a couple of months. He then sent a letter to the Mullahs in Iran asking for safe refuge. He allegedly offered money for housing but he also said Al Qaida would never attack inside Iran if his request was accepted. The Mullahs did accept OBL’s request, or so the rumors indicate, and he is housed on a Revolutionary Guard military base near a major religious shrine. Of course this doesn’t narrow down which base, assuming again this information is accurate, because Iran has build key military infrastructure near religious shrines for the purpose of national defense. The theory is that any country that attacked these bases and nuclear installations would damage these religious shrines and thus infuriate Iranians.

The issue of whether or not Iran and Al Qaida have a collaborative relationship, or if Iran is using the believed Al Qaida leaders under house-arrest as bargaining chips is an important issue that needs to be determined. Not only does this throw another wrench into the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, as if there is room for another wrench, but it also presents a major obstacle of U.S. foreign policy to either confront Iran over these Al Qaida leaders or work out a diplomatic solution to get these members handed over. Ever since the fall of the Shah (thanks Jihad Jimmy!), Iran and the United States have ceased all diplomatic relations. There remains high tension between the two nations, and now that Ahmadinejad seemingly has the reigns to a budding nuclear nation, there is reason to be concerned with Al Qaida leadership within the nation.

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