German Publication Claims Al Qaeda Leaders Operate Freely in Iran

Dan Darling, Regnum Crucis: Ciceronian Affairs

The German political magazine Cicero, which I've noted before (and apparently the BKA information contained in the article was accurate, as its publication prompted a raid on the Potsdam magazine's offices).

The original article can be accessed in its original German here, but these appear to be the passages that raised the alarm of the German authorities:

How far he [Zarqawi] left Bin Ladin's shadow behind is proven by numerous files and dossiers put together both by Western and Middle East secret services as well as information and documents compiled by German security authorities.

They do not only show the career of headhunter Al-Zarqawi, but also that his career in the name of Allah could only take place because God's killers were supplied with logistical support, money, and weapons by state organizations in a number of Middle Eastern states.

Top of the list of Al-Zarqawi's sponsors: the Islamic Republic of Iran and the hardliners from the group around the Al-Quds Brigades of the Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran. It is Germany's Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA), of all places, that has confirmed that Iran "provided Al-Zarqawi with logistical support on the part of the state." According to BKA files, Iran used to be "an important logistical basis." READ MORE

The BKA files list nine other passports and identity cards from Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, and Yemen that Al-Zarqawi undoubtedly used to travel over the past three years. His radius of action covers Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, the Pankisi Valley in Georgia, and the northern Caucasus. In these countries Al-Zarqawi is not only able to draw on an army of sympathizers of the Holy War, that is, members of rather diverse Islamist networks who are at his disposal when necessary, he also has his own cells of active Holy Warriors in this semicircle across borders: in North Africa, Spain, France, and Italy, as well as in Germany: German security authorities suspect that at least 150 of his followers live, above all, in Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Berlin. His network is attached to radical mosques such as the Al-Nur Mosque in the Berlin district of Neukoelln or the Multicultural Centre in Neu-Ulm. These are radical jihadists for whom Al-Zarqawi's ideology according to which "the jihad can only be fought successfully by resorting to terrorism" is the sole yardstick of their actions.

The BKA has described and analyzed the career of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and the ramifications of his global network in a 125-page report dated 6 September 2004. Each page is stamped "VS -- for official use only, not to be used in court, reference file only." No wonder: not all of the findings can be used in preliminary proceedings in Germany. Not all of the sources on which the compendium is based have the reputation of strictly following the rules of the law when carrying out investigations. A total of 392 footnotes present data, sources, and facts with determination. Business trips of German investigators to Rabat in Morocco, Amman in Jordan, to France, and Italy, reports on findings put together by the German intelligence service (BND), the FBI, the CIA, and recurring briefings of French and Israeli offices outline the career of Al-Khalayleh al-Zarqawi and the growth of his international "Network of Arab Mujahidin."

"In our view, Al-Zarqawi must be seen as the leader of an independent terrorist network working autonomously," the German analysis says.

And:

After the war in Afghanistan, Al-Zarqawi sets up new camps and safe houses in Zahedan, Isfahan, and Tehran. His European followers come to Tehran, bringing with them money and new passport identities and collecting instructions. Communication is handled through middlemen and by phone. The German BND listens in: it has tapped Al-Zarqawi's Swiss satellite telephone with the number 0041-793686306 and his Iranian cell phones with the numbers 0098-9135153994 and 0098-218757638.

Supported by radical groups within the secret service of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Al-Zarqawi may safely use the landline number 0098-9112311436. In Isfahan, he uses a telephone with the number 0098-9112399346, which is registered under the name of Ahmad Abdul Salam, Bahar Street, Block No. 27, Kukak Area, Asfahan, Iran. In urgent cases, his followers can reach him under his fax No. 0098-218757638. German security authorities confirm on the quiet what their Jordanian colleagues also see as the reason of why Al-Zarqawi was, and is, as a Jordanian investigator adds, so successful: "The fact that the two sides hate one another for religious reasons has never prevented them from cooperating very closely."

And:

When German investigators arrested Lokman M. in Munich in 2003, they found out that he had established a virtual travel agency for trips to Iraq and back. "This is a rat line of which we only know that it exists," a German BND officer groans. "We have no idea of its course and where it goes and who else is involved in the organization. Yet at one point, we will have the Big Bang [previous two words published in English] right here in Europe, and it will all be Al-Zarqawi's doings." It is an admission of impotence behind which is sheer horror -- that there is something in all the rumors, clues, and meager evidence and that Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi will finally manage to carry out his chemical mega attack.

How far Al-Zarqawi's experiments have really progressed to carry out terrorist attacks using chemical warfare agents in Europe is something the European services do not know exactly. "All we know is that he is working on it," one secret service official says. Investigators suspect that one center of Al-Zarqawi's efforts to produce and distribute chemical warfare agents is situated in the northern Caucasus and in Georgia today. "Georgia, as a rule, is mentioned in the same breath with suspected activities to produce poisons," the BKA investigators write in their documentation, listing the names of those involved: "The main activist is said to have been Adnan Sadiq Muhammad Abu Injila, alias Abu Atiya, who is said to have carried out experiments with cyanide and ricin in the Pankisi Valley in Georgia to produce contact poison. Abu Atiya is said to have graduated from the camp in Herat and to be a confidante of Al-Zarqawi." According to intelligence service findings, Al-Zarqawi's loyal follower Abu Atiya is assumed to have "organized and coordinated the dispatch of toxic material." Ricin and cyanide were intended to be used, among others, in a terrorist attack in Britain.

Abu Atiya is also said to have assigned terrorists to carry out attacks in Europe. The BKA has named witnesses: Rashi Zuhayr, one of Al-Zarqawi's Holy Warriors. "He was arrested when he tried to cross a border holding forged identity papers. When questioned, Rashi admitted to have been asked by Abu Atiya to spy out targets in the United Kingdom for attacks involving poison and conventional weapons together with other persons. The information gained from Rashi led to further arrests, enabling the authorities to avert a major terrorist threat in the United Kingdom." The European investigators, who try to get onto Al-Zarqawi's network and his chemical terror plans, feel like "poking about in a fog. Sometimes, we catch someone more or less accidentally, giving us bits of information. And then we often do not know for a long time whether they are any good," one investigator grumbles. In the case of Al-Zarqawi's chemical attack plans in Britain, the investigators were lucky. The information they had been given by Rashi Zuhayr coincided with that given earlier by another detainee. He is number three in the Al-Qa'ida hierarchy: Abu Zubaydah, who has been detained by the United States since 2002 and been interrogated in custody. BKA investigators say that the information delivered was really explosive. "It also confirms the information supplied by Abu Zubaydah that Al-Zarqawi and his network planned to carry out poison attacks in the United Kingdom. A large number of the people who are in contact with Rashi in Europe is said to come from North Africa, therefore finding it easy to enter neighboring countries," the BKA investigators wrote.

That would appear to coincide with what Powell said at the UN about the size and scope of the Zarqawi network. Nice to see that the BKA seems to have gotten around to verifying it and doesn't appear to be using the same kinds of ideological blinders applied here as far as some of our own spooks are concerned.

Here's excerpts from today's article in Cicero by the same author, which you can find summarized by AFP here. [DoctorZin: I have replace the following German text with the following Google translation, please forgive the poor quality of the translation]

The fact that after Ahmadinejads assumption of office becomes reality, which was only threatened so far, fears now the European official contacts of Iran. Particularly since their secret services over alarming realizations order. "for Ahmadinejad the terror threat is not a diplomatic finger exercise. That believes the Islamic revolution in the ' purity ' and converts, which he threatens with, determines "a western secret service.

The secret service of the revolutionary guards of the top management of al Qaida actually offers logistic support, military training as well as equipment for years to safe Unterschlupf. "the fact that sunnitische Dschihadisten and Shiite hate each other, is not for both a reason not to cooperate. They have a common enemy ", know western secret services.

The author of this article could see a list of the killers of God, that found a safe stronghold in Iran. The list reads itself like the Who's Who of the global Dschihads. Scarcely 25 high-ranking command structures of al Qaida - planners, supervisors and ideologists of the Dschihads from Egypt, Usbekistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa as well as from Europe. Completely above in the al-Qaida-Hierachy: three of the sons of Osama are shop, Saeed, Mohammad and Othman.

Al-Qaida-speaker Abu Ghaib enjoys just as Iranian protection as Abu Dagana a Alemani (mentioned: the German), which coordinates the co-operation of the different dschihadistischen networks in all world from Iran. They live in safe houses of the revolutionary guards into and around Teheran. "that is not detention or a house arrest", so the conclusion of a high-ranking secret service coworker. "those can switch and walten, like them want."

That knew also Saif al aristocracy, military boss and number three of al Qaida. At the beginning of of May 2003 cuts the Saudi secret service its telephone calls with the supervisor of the notice series in the Saudi capital Riyadh also, which in May 2003 more than 30 humans, under it seven foreigners, fall to the victim. Saif al aristocracy publishes the instruction to the assassination attempts from Iran, where he acts under the wings of the Iranian secret service.

Iranian secret services, as the realizations Middle East as western security agencies, co-operate already for years always again with sunnitischen Dschihad organizations of al Qaida. "as an Islamic I go getting to the Saudis, around money", outline the Jordanian GID man the past practice of Islamic Gotteskrieger. "if I weapons, logistic support or training and equipment military-of terror need, go I to the Iranians." The blueprints for the al-Qaida-notices on the US messages in Kenya and Tanzania 1998 originate from Teheran. The man appoints himself to testimonies, documents and telephone with cuts.

In addition, come from Iran completely open and very martial tones. They tell of the return of the Iranian state terrorism in and the nineties eighties of the past century. Years a lasting series of takings of hostages and murders at western foreigners fell in Lebanon more than sixty humans to the victim. Both the barrack that US-marine and those of the French peacekeeping forces were blown up into air, hundreds humans died. The authors: the Lebanese Hisbollah. The planners and backers originate from the Fuehrungsriege of the revolutionary guards of Iran.

I'll post the FBIS translation as soon as I am able to receive it (for failing that, another German translation if someone wants to e-mail me one), but this would seem to support the position of Dr. Ledeen and myself for well over 3 years now that the al-Qaeda leaders in Iran remain entirely active. The NIE on Iran, as I understand it, is murky, probably deliberately, on this point, but it's long past time that this issue start receiving its due attention.

A MUST READ: The report has significant credibility as the German government raided the publication down after the initial report was published claiming classified state documents were used. The international media are also reporting on the Cicero report. Reuters:

Iran is permitting around 25 high-ranking al Qaeda members to roam free in the country's capital... They are living in houses belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the report said.

"This is not incarceration or house arrest," a Western intelligence agent was quoted as saying. "They can move around as they please."

See also: ABC News.

I wonder if Zarqawi's Iranian phone numbers, supplied in the article, still work?

My German readers: interested in providing us with a better translations of these reports?