IRAN HELPED BEN LADEN ESCAPE AMERICAN HUNTERS
By Parviz Mardani
HAMBURG (GERMANY) 21 Jan. (IPS) Mr. Osama Ben Laden, the man Americans
consider as the mastermind behind the 11 September attacks on the World Trade
Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, has escaped Afghanistan,
using diversion propaganda tactics and Iranian support and routes, according to
the German newspaper "Die Welt".
Citing unidentified "informed sources", the influential German daily says Mr. Ben Laden was able to leave Afghanistan with the help of Imad Mughnyeh, the Head of the intelligence services of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
Mr. Mughnyeh, sought after for several terrorist operations and plane hijackings, is on the American list of 12 most wanted men. He is believed to be living in Iran and working closely with the intelligence department of Iranian revolutionary guard’s elite unit known as "Al Qods" (Jerusalem).
According to "Die Welt", Mr. Mughnyeh had taken over the command of "Al-Qa’eda" organisation months before the 11 September operations and had opened an escape route linking the Afghan province of Heart, where he had established his command centre in Gandalak, south of Heart, to the Persian Gulf, after having secured full co-operation from the Iranians outside the government of President Mohammad Khatami, a reference to Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the top leader of the Islamic Republic.
Iran Press Service had learned from well-informed Iranian sources and eyewitnesses that former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani had personally "received" some 70 to 90 high-ranking Afghan and "arab-looking" personalities from Mash-had, the capital city of Khorasan Province that borders with the Afghan province of Heart and escorted them to Tehran in a private plane.
"Though Pakistan’s President Parviz Mosharraf has assured that Ben Laden died on renal disease, but informed sources believes he is alive and well, having escaped Afghanistan via Iranian ports of the Persian Gulf to safe heavens in the region", the paper’s journalist Mr. Rolf Tophoven said, quoting "well informed western secret services sources.
Die Welt says the information had been taken so seriously by Washington to explain President Bush’s 10 January warning to Tehran to hand over Al-Qa’eda murderers who might have escaped to Iran and also not try to destablise the interim government of Mr. Hamid Karzai.
The "diversion tactics and tricks" worked out by Mr. Mughnyeh consisted of spreading false rumours that Mr. Ben Laden had escaped to Pakistan, prompting American massive bombing of Tora Bora Mountains in search of the master-terrorist, Die Welt said on Sunday.
"One week after the false alarm campaign early November Last year, both Ben Laden and his top advisor, Aiman al-Zawahiri disappeared from Afghanistan into Iran", the paper said, adding that to escape American and Israeli secret services, Mr. Mughnyeh had twice undergone plastic face operations making it very difficult to recognise him.
"However the Israelis seem to be certain of the creation of a new cooperation between the godfathers of the Hezbollah, the radical wing of the Iranian Mullahrchy and Imad Mugniyah", rising the spectre of a new terrorist alliance paving the way to new wave of terrorist activities in collaboration between the Hezbollah and Al-Qa’ed sponsored by the Islamic Republic", according to Die Welt.
After describing Ben Laden’s escape route inside Iran, Die Welt says the Iranian city-port of Bandar Abbas had been the last place where the fugitive anti-American, anti-western crusader had been spotted before vanishing in some unknown place, embarked on one of the seven or eight cargo ships placed on the disposal of Mr. Mughnyeh. ENDS BEN LADEN DIE WELT 21102