According to this information, the former president flew to the north-eastern city close to the Afghan borders in a private plane and after preying at the imam Reza’s shrine, returned to Tehran the same evening, accompanied by some 80 to 90 "heavy turbaned" Afghan personalities who, on their arrival to the capital, were immediately divided in several groups and taken to undisclosed destination escorted by Pasdarn (Revolutionary Guards) special units.

"We don't know who they were, but they must be big fishes to be taken care by Mr. Rafsanjani", the source told Iran Press Service, requesting anonymity.

"There are some of them in [Afghanistan]. ... There are some of them out of the country - some of those are in Pakistan. Some are undoubtedly in Iran", Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld told "The Baltimore Sun" on 28 December.

Because Iran, like Pakistan, has "a big long border" with Afghanistan, he said, some of the leadership has likely fled west and crossed into the neighbouring Muslim state.

Rumsfeld also said that none of the top leaders of the Al-Qa’eda terrorist network or the defeated Taleban regime is in U.S. hands and hinted for the first time that some of them might have fled to Iran.

His statement marked the first time that a senior U.S. official has mentioned Iran as a possible destination, though when pressed, he said there was no hard information that any of the leaders were there. He did not suggest that Iran was harbouring Al-Qa’eda or Taleban leaders.

"He may be in Pakistan. He may be dead. He may be in Afghanistan. He may be lots of places", Rumsfeld said. "If he's not in Afghanistan, we'll find him wherever he is. His organisation is not functioning smoothly in terms of new initiatives. He's busy hiding and running."

U.S. intelligence officials believe Iran may provide a better escape route than the central Asian nations north of Afghanistan or Pakistan to the south. The reason: Iran has no formal diplomatic ties with the United States and thus cannot be counted on to cooperate in capturing bin Laden, blamed by U.S. officials for the September 11 attacks, according to "WorldNetDaily" quoting "Geostrategy-Direct".

Border controls in areas of western Iran are said to be lax and the region has been known to be a drug trans-shipment route for illegal narcotics from Pakistan.

Iran’s special elite unit in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corp (IRGC) or the Pasdaran known as "Al Qqods" (Jerusalem) have established secret contacts with the notorious anti-US crusader Bin Laden to co-ordinate activities against Washington and Tel-Aviv, according to well informed intelligence sources.

U.S. intelligence agencies also have reports from the late 1990s linking Ben Laden to Iranian intelligence.

Probably the staunchest enemy of America and the US-dominated Western culture, the Islamic Republic’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i unabatedly denounces Washington as "Muslim’s number one enemy" and call on Arabs and Muslims, as well as other nations and people resenting the US domination, to unite in standing to the US "arrogance and domination of the world".

Afghan fighters and U.S. troops are searching in Afghanistan for (Mollah Mohammad) Omar, the fugitive leader of the defeated Taleban, Rumsfeld said, adding: "We still think he's in the country. He's not a well-known, prominent world traveller".

Rumsfeld guffawed when asked whether the Afghanistan campaign would be incomplete without the capture of the top leaders. "Our goal is to stop these terrorist networks and to stop the countries that are harbouring terrorists", he said. "And we've said from the outset this wasn't about Osama Ben Laden. ... Needless to say, we'd like to get the leaders. If you handed me [Ben Laden] today, there are still eight, 10, 12 people in Al-Qa’eda alone that could operate that network and would. ... We've got to stop the whole thing. It's a very tough job."

Rumsfeld, in the "Baltimore Sun" interview, said there are about 48 sites in Afghanistan suspected of containing chemical, biological or nuclear materials. Thirty-seven of those have been checked and contained no evidence of such weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld confirmed that one of the sites included warheads made of depleted uranium, a heavy metal that is slightly radioactive. "We checked it out. At least with respect to that one site, it turned out to be DU", he said.

What resources - if any - that Al-Qa’eda was able to muster for chemical, biological and nuclear materials remains unknown. The Pentagon has said that Ben Laden's network likely had a "crude" capability for such weapons, possibly including toxins for a biological weapon or chemicals such as phosgene and chlorine, World War I-era agents that affect the respiratory tract.

And the terrorist network might have tried to develop some type of radiological device. Such a device would not be an explosive, but would spread radiological material that could be deadly.

Compiled from The WorldNetDaily, Geostrategy-Direct (1) and The Baltimore Sun, with reports from Iran Press Service

(1) Geostrategy-Direct is a new online newsletter edited by veteran journalist Robert Morton and featuring the "Backgrounder" column compiled by Bill Gertz.