Hezbollah Is A Terrorist Group

[Rasputin]

A U.N. Security Council sanctions committee has formally adopted a report linking Hezbollah with Islamic militias in Somalia.

The endorsement came despite doubts voiced by experts about such a link.

U.N. Spokesman Yves Sorokobi told United Press International that the committee -- set up by the Security Council to monitor its arms embargo -- had adopted the report, prepared by an experts group it appointed, on Wednesday.

The report, a draft of which was leaked to the media last week, said that in July, during fierce fighting with Israel, more than 700 fighters from one of the Islamic militias that now control much of Somalia had traveled to Lebanon to fight alongside Hezbollah and that hundreds remained behind for special training from the group, a designated terrorist organization.

The fighters were said to be from a militia group dubbed al-Shabab, "the youth" in Arabic. The group had attracted the attention of U.S. counter-terrorist officials because its leader trained in al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and is believed to maintain links with Osama bin Laden.

But several experts on the region told UPI that they were doubtful about the claims, said to be based on intelligence reporting from the embassies of Security Council member states in Nairobi.

"I am very skeptical," said former senior U.S. diplomatic official in the region David Shinn.

[Rasputin]

Those among us who thought that the victory of allied democracies in 1945 would mark the end of hate and state-sponsored racism were naive. What remains in human memory as the most cruel of conflicts changed neither human nature nor peoples' ambition. Religious wars, political dictatorships, ethnic clashes, sectarian, cultural and economic crises: Their impact affects us all pretty much everywhere on the planet. Our world is still the target of more than one threat. Such is life, that everything comes full circle to start over again.
Yet even in the domain of evil, differences and degrees exist. Certain dictators are worse than others, and their hateful actions have consequences more dangerous.

For the reader who has not yet guessed, I am speaking of the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: More than so many others who abuse their position if not their power, this one represents the darkest of political action.

Ridiculing historical truths, offending the memory of survivors still alive, he glorifies the act of lying: As the No. 1 Holocaust denier in the world, an anti-Semite with a disturbed mind, he claims that Hitler's "Final Solution" never happened. He even had a large international exhibition of anti-Holocaust cartoons mounted in Tehran. Several hundred cartoonists participated. When asked about the future, the exhibition organizer states that the project will continue as long as the Jewish state has not been destroyed.

And who will destroy it? On this point, President Ahmadinejad is not afraid to clarify his view: Iran will take the lead. As soon as this Muslim country has acquired a nuclear weapon, the first bombs will be launched on Israel. And he has not ceased to repeat this threat.

Consider it this way: According to him, there was no Holocaust in the past, but there is sure to be one and it is on the way. Scandalous rumblings of a fanatic? Yes, but this fanatic addresses crowds that like his ideas and applaud them. Just empty words? No. This orator does not speak for nothing. He seems rather committed to keeping his "promises." It would be wrong to question his determination. A person does not just preach hate for nothing. Isn't his goal to break the heart and snuff the life of anyone who does not think like him? As for me, I belong to a generation that learned to take the enemy's words of hate seriously.

And lest we forget, who is behind the Hezbollah terrorist organization? Iran. Iran sends them the most modern weapons and officers to train their soldiers. But what does Hezbollah want? Territorial concessions? No. The creation of a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with the Jewish state? No. The sole objective of this movement - and of the Iranian president - is the destruction of Israel.

This is why I maintain that such a figure does not have a place within the community of international leaders. Persona non grata, an undesirable individual, this is what he should become, because of what he is doing to his country, to his people, to all of humanity. This is why he deserves to be turned away everywhere. I'll go even further: The country he leads and embodies should be excluded from the United Nations as long as he is its ruler and symbol. On what grounds? It is quite simple: One member state of the United Nations that threatens to destroy another member state of these same United Nations violates its very charter and conventions.

Is something like this possible? I am not naive enough to believe that this could really happen. What state would introduce such a UN resolution? And how many delegates would vote to adopt it? I know all too well: very few. But at least they won't feel so comfortable in their fear. At least they'll learn from lessons of the not-so-distant past: We know with whom a dictator will begin; but he will not stop there. If Iran were to have a nuclear weapon, do we really think that Israel would remain its only target?

Some will say: What about North Korea? Why aren't we doing something about them? Don't they have the same atomic ambitions? Yes, they do. But there is still quite a difference. North Korea has never threatened to wipe away another state. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, is author of "Night" and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

[Rasputin]

The assassination of Lebanese Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel has shaken Lebanon’s elected government at a critical moment of deepening political crisis. Gemayel strongly supported the 2005 Cedar Revolution that swept away a Syrian occupation force that had exploited Lebanon as a colony and convenient surrogate battlefield for three decades. His murder is a major psychological blow to the embattled government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which has struggled to consolidate Lebanon’s independence from Syria.



The assassination came shortly before a crucial cabinet vote on the approval of an international tribunal to indict and try the Syrian-sponsored suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria appears to be pulling out all the stops to block that tribunal, which is expected to implicate high-ranking Syrian officials. Despite the growing atmosphere of intimidation, Lebanon’s cabinet did approve the international tribunal on November 25. Syria’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, is now threatening to organize street demonstrations to bring down the government.

Syria has a long history of political assassinations in Lebanon, which it seeks to retain as a dependent satellite. In addition to Gemayel and Hariri, Syria is believed to be responsible for the assassinations of scores of other anti-Syrian leaders, including Gemayel’s uncle, President-elect Bachir Gemayel, before he assumed office in 1982, journalist Samir Kassir, and respected parliamentary leader and publisher Gibran Tueni.

Although uniformed Syrian soldiers were forced out of Lebanon last year, Syria still maintains a potent network of agents throughout Lebanon and enjoys a close working relationship with the Iranian-inspired Hezbollah terrorist group, which has established a political stranglehold on Lebanon’s single biggest sectarian group, the Shia. Hezbollah’s political party and other Syrian allies have pulled out of Lebanon’s government and are seeking to bring it down before it can further undermine Syria’s influence over Lebanon.

In addition to fomenting sectarian tension between Lebanese factions and Palestinians and Israelis, Syria’s Assad dictatorship also supports the bloody insurgency in Iraq. Assad’s Baathist regime has given sanctuary to and cooperated with the exiled remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime, which control a large portion of the insurgents inside Iraq. The Assad regime also allows radical Islamic movements to funnel men, money, and weapons to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups operating in Iraq.

The Assad regime has serially ignited sectarian violence to undermine its adversaries in Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq. It should be penalized, not rewarded, for these hostile actions. Yet some now call for the Assad dictatorship to be given more of a say in the future of Iraq, which is also struggling to defeat Syrian-supported thugs. Syria is very much part of the problem in Iraq, not a helpful part of the solution. The Assad regime would prefer to facilitate the “Lebanonization” of Iraq, rather than tolerate the survival of a pro-American democratic regime that could further undermine the legitimacy of its Baathist ideology.

The United States should give strong diplomatic, political, economic, and moral support to Lebanon in its continued struggle for independence against Syria. Washington should push for a full investigation of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel as well as former Prime Minister Hariri. The Assad regime cannot be allowed to continue its campaign of murderous intimidation with impunity. Moreover, the Bush Administration should rule out giving Syria any added influence in Iraq, which already has suffered greatly from Syria’s harmful influence. The Assad regime should be isolated and punished for its bloody interference in its neighbors’ internal affairs, not given a better opportunity to do so.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah Throng Demands Ouster of Lebanon Government



Tens of thousands of supporters of Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim party and militia, crowded streets and plazas across a wide swathe of downtown Beirut to demand the ouster of pro-Western Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

A sea of demonstrators waving red and white Lebanese flags stood shoulder to shoulder, listened to martial music and derided the Siniora government as a tool of the United States and Israel.

Hezbollah ushers in black kept watch over the periphery of the crowd at Riad Solh Square, which lies beneath the prime minister's office building, to keep order. Anytime someone opened a window in the building, the crowd shouted ``Out, out Siniora!''

The protest was the latest episode in a power struggle that pits Hezbollah and allies against the ruling coalition. The government claims Syria is nurturing the conflict in order to dominate the small Mediterranean country. The Nov. 21 assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel provided an ominous backdrop to the conflict.

The crowd -- men wearing jackets against the autumn chill, women under shawls, teenagers in jeans -- was peaceful. ``We are the national and moral choice,'' said Michel Aoun, a Christian ally of Hezbollah's. His presence lent to a multi-confessional color to the Shiite rally.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah, which the U.S. State Department labels a terrorist organization, is demanding more representation in the Siniora cabinet to give it veto power and the ability to divert the government from friendship with the United States and France. The party's militia fought a 33-day war with Israel and insists its defense of the country justifies its quest for greater power. Matul Haraki, 16, a student at today's demonstration, said, ``I saw the war and we made sacrifices. We want to change things from their foundation.''

An October survey by the Beirut Center for Research and Information predicted that if new elections took place, Hezbollah and its allies would win a majority in parliament.

``This is the government of the U.S. Embassy,'' said Ali Bhou, 27, an import-export businessman from Beirut. ``We are 100 percent Lebanese and they are with America and Israel. We have the honor of being with Iran and Syria.''

Sit-Ins

Hezbollah set up tents in at least two downtown squares where party officials promised open-ended sit-ins will continue. Soldiers equipped with machine guns, armored vehicles and barbed wire set up barricades to guard government buildings against takeovers.

Businesses in central Beirut closed because of the rally, while universities sent students home at 10 a.m. Bars and restaurants in the city's center were mostly empty in the evening.

The stand-off plays into intense regional rivalries. On the day of Gemayel's death, President Bush accused Syria as well as Iran of fomenting ``instability and violence'' in Lebanon. Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has set himself up as a counterweight to U.S. policies of democratizing the Middle East. ``Colonialism has not ended,'' according to a Nov. 29 report from SANA, the official Syrian news agency. ``In the past they used to call it colonialism. Today it is called liberation.''

When Hezbollah leader and Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah announced the protest plan on television yesterday, he justified it in the name of competent government. Few yellow party flags flew, an indication that Hezbollah sought to make the protest a national rather than partisan affair.

Hariri Murder

Nasrallah made no mention in his speech of government passage of United Nations plans to prosecute suspects in the 2005 assassination by car bomb of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Hezbollah and allied ministers walked out as the cabinet prepared to adopt the proposal. UN investigators have implicated Syrian officials in the murder.

In a televised appearance following Nasrallah's speech, Siniora said demonstrations would not shake his rule. His coalition won elections that followed massive anti-Syrian demonstrations on the heels of Hariri's death.

A sunny day favored a big turnout. Demonstrators arrived in Beirut from as far away as the border with Israel to the south. ``We are here to support our leader and make a fair government,'' said Ali Ismael, 36, a carpenter from the southern city of Nabatiyeh.

Mona Deeb, 27, with two toddlers in tow, held a banner that read, ``We want a clean government.''

They say we are Syria's slaves, but they are just trying to keep us quiet,'' Deeb said outside a bus that carried her from Tyre, a southern coastal city. ``We will not be quiet.''

Pro-government officials said Lebanon risked violence. ``They are trying to turn Lebanon into an open battlefield,'' Walid Jumblatt, political leader of the country's Druze minority and a Siniora supporter, said at a press conference.

Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, a Hezbollah member of parliament, heaped scorn on the dire warning. ``Jumblatt lives in illusions,'' he said on al-Arabiya, a pan-Middle East satellite news station.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

You know you're in trouble when you can't even call the terrorists "terrorists."


This effectively was the ruling handed down last week by Judge Audrey Collins of the federal district court in Los Angeles.


It marks yet another low point not only in the Bush administration's record in defending its War on Terror legal doctrines in the courtroom (2006 has been particularly unkind in this respect) but also in the courts' increasingly nonsensical attempts to assert themselves in matters of national security.


This latest episode began in 1917 when, in the Trading With the Enemy Act, Congress granted the president broad authority to "investigate, regulate . . . prevent or prohibit . . . transactions" in times of war or declared emergencies.


And then in 1977 Congress extended that authority in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), to include the power to "investigate,... regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of" property in which a foreign country or person has an interest, but only in the presence of an "unusual and extraordinary threat." (Incidentally, violating the IEEPA was one of Clinton supporter Marc Rich's many transgressions.)


On September 23, 2001, President Bush announced the existence of just such a threat. Executive Order 13224 declared that the "grave acts of terrorism" and the "continuing and immediate threat of future attacks" on the United States constituted a national emergency.


President Bush then froze the assets of twenty-seven groups and individuals, each of which

he designated as specially designated global terrorist groups (SDGT). At the time, the administration earned plaudits from all but the most hardened leftists for its recognition that terrorist money is the ultimate source of terrorist evil; not exactly the root cause so much as the root itself.


The executive order authorized the designation as an SDGT of anyone who: acts "for or on behalf of;" is "owned or controlled by;" assists, sponsors, or provides ". . . services to;" or is "otherwise associated with" a designated terrorist group. The order also provided mechanisms for administrative review of any SDGT designation and for obtaining a license to conduct business with such groups under limited circumstances.


Among the groups specified were terrorist front organizations like the Wafa Humanitarian Organization and the Al Rashid Trust, both linked to jihadists like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Later included were the Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party) (PKK) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers, whose supporters were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Judge Collins.


The PKK is a brutal international Marxist-Leninist revolutionary group dedicated to creating a Kurdish homeland by hook or by crook, and always by violence. It carried out bombings against civilian and military targets, mostly in Turkey. Its founder and leader, terrorist mastermind Abdullah Ocalan, was captured and convicted in Turkey in 1999.


The Tamil Tigers are likewise a violent separatist movement responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including an especially ghastly shooting in a Buddhist temple in 1985. Seeking an independent state for Sri Lanka's Tamil population, the LTTE most recently killed over one hundred people in a bus bombing in October. While neither of these groups are Islamist, they have proven poisonously lethal.


Nevertheless, Judge Collins stacked the deck in the first paragraphs of her opinion where she described the PKK as "a political organization representing the interests of the Kurds in Turkey, with the goal of achieving self-determination for the Kurds in Southeastern Turkey." Well, that's one way of putting it.


She also depicted the TTLE's "activities" as "political organizing and advocacy, providing social services and humanitarian aid, defending the Tamil people from human rights abuses," oh, and, by the way, "using military force against the government of Sri Lanka."


The court portrayed the particular litigants as "seeking to provide support to the lawful, nonviolent activities" of the PKK and the LTTE.


And while Judge Collins rejected several of the groups' constitutional challenges, she held that the Executive Order "provides no explanation of the basis upon which these twenty-seven groups and individuals were designated." Thus, the president's authority was so vague as to violate the Constitution.


Furthermore, because "the President's designation authority is subject only to his unfettered discretion," the administrative procedure for challenging such designations was found wanting. And just like that, in five crisp paragraphs, the administration's power to designate terrorist groups was suddenly eliminated.


In addition, Judge Collins held that the Executive Order, which prohibits individuals from "otherwise associat[ing] with" the SDTGs, violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment freedom of association. Because the Order did not define what this term meant, it impermissibly "lends itself to subjective interpretation" and improperly "gives the Government unfettered discretion in enforcing it."


In many ways, then, the court piled on to previous recent national security rulings that went against the administration.


The key theme is "unfettered discretion," a term that appears no fewer than 11 times in Judge Collins's opinion. In the minds of many of our nation's jurists, the cardinal sin of the Executive Branch is to arrogate to itself undue prerogative. When the administration seizes excessive authority in matters properly allocated to the other branches, this argument goes, our entire system suffers.


Fair enough - in peacetime and in matters of domestic policy. Our founders unquestionably favored the separation of powers as one of their highest ideals. No single branch ought to dominate any of the others.


But when we are at war, over the course of our history - both legal and political - the president has traditionally enjoyed much greater leeway in setting policy in the national security ambit. Only the executive can act decisively and efficiently in the face of gathering or present threats.


It's therefore especially surprising that the court would strike down President Bush's authority to designate terrorist groups as such. Who is better equipped than the executive - privy as he or she is to top-secret intelligence and an enormous range of information - to make such determinations?


As for Judge Collins's reasoning, there may well be occasions on which the president simply cannot divulge the justification behind labeling a certain organization an SDTG. That very decision could itself implicate national security concerns.


Practically speaking, the ruling marks a victory for terror groups around the globe. If the U.S. cannot effectively uproot the terrorist money tree, it will continue to bestow its fruits on groups ranging from Hezbollah to Al Qaeda to the PKK.


But more fundamentally, this is a major symbolic blow to the War on Terror. If we are not allowed even to define the enemy, how can we possibly hope to defeat him? If we are deprived of the very opportunity to identify the nature of our adversary, we have already fallen into his clutches.


The administration has vowed to appeal this ruling, as it has all of the others it has recently lost. Here's hoping it prevails - for all of our sakes.

[Rasputin]

WASHINGTON: The US government Wednesday froze assets of nine individuals and two organizations in Latin America accused of supporting the powerful Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The US Treasury said those targeted are located in the "Tri-Border Area" of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and have provided financial aid to a "specially designated global terrorist" named Assad Ahmad Barakat, who has been cited for his support of the Hezbollah leadership.

Barakat's assets were frozen in 2004 when he was listed as "one of the most prominent and influential members of the Hezbollah terrorist organization."

US officials said at the time Bakarat had been Hezbollah's treasurer and had funneled money raised through coercion to the group in Lebanon and Iran.

"Assad Ahmad Barakat's network in the Tri-Border Area is a major financial artery to Hezbollah in Lebanon," said Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
"Today's action aims to disrupt this channel and to further unravel Barakat's financial network."
The move was taken on the basis of a presidential order aimed at shutting down the financial flows supporting terrorism, which can freeze assets under US jurisdiction.

The United States has stepped up a financial offensive on Hezbollah since the militant group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in July, sparking a 34-day war in Lebanon.

Among the new targets was Muhammad Yusif Abdallah, described by US officials as "a senior Hezbollah leader" in the South American region and an important contributor of funds to the organization.

Officials said he has been a "courier of Hezbollah funds" to Lebanon and has been "involved in the import of contraband electronics, passport falsification, credit card fraud, and trafficking counterfeit US dollars."

The sanctions also target two brothers and a cousin of Assad Ahmad Barakat, as well as electronics store Casa Hamze and shopping center Galeria Page, both in Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

I was aware of certain contacts between al Qaeda and al Jihad organization, on one side, and Iran and Hezbollah on the other side. I arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between [Imad Mugniyah], Hezbollah’s chief, and Bin Laden. Hezbollah provided explosives training for al Qaeda and al Jihad. Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weapons. Iran also used Hezbollah to supply explosives that were disguised to look like rocks.

In hindsight, disclosure of an Iran/Hezbollah/Qaeda partnership should have come as no surprise. In the aforementioned spring 1998 indictment, the Justice Department alleged that bin Laden had “stated privately … that Al Qaeda should put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including the Government of Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezballah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.” Thus, the indictment explained: “Al Qaeda also forged alliances … with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.”

This concord, according to the 9/11 Commission’s review of U.S. intelligence files, traces back to the early 1990s. The invaluable terrorism researcher Thomas Joscelyn relates that the alliance was corroborated by testimony from a former al Qaeda member, Jamal al-Fadl (at the East African embassy-bombings trial in 2000). Bin Laden, according to al-Fadl, met at a guesthouse in Riyadh City with an emissary named Nomani, representing Iran’s mullahs. It would be mutually beneficial, they concurred, to put aside their Sunni/Shiite divide and work together against the common enemy: America and the West. Other Iranian contingents, the 9/11 Commission notes, visited al Qaeda’s headquarters in Sudan — bin Laden and his top aides having been transported there under Mohamed’s protection.

Subsequently, the Commission states (p. 61), “senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the fall of 1993, another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further training in explosives as well as intelligence and security.” That instruction, held at Hezbollah camps, included al Qaeda’s top military committee members and several operatives who were involved with its Kenya cells long before the 1998 embassy bombings.

FALLOUT
The deadly fallout from this collaboration becomes increasingly clear. On June 25, 1996, a bomb was detonated near the American Air Force dormitory at the Khobar Towers complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The resulting massacre claimed the lives of 19 U.S. airmen (nearly 400 other people were wounded). In this land teeming with al Qaeda operatives and supporters, Hezbollah had been conducting surveillance on the target since 1993.

In responding — with an indictment — five years later, the Bush Justice Department announced that “the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hizballah. In particular, … [Hezbollah] defendants reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials.” Those officials, it is clear, acted with impunity: No Iranians were ever charged for Khobar, and no meaningful U.S. action against Iran was ever taken. In the interim, it has emerged that the operation was likely carried out with al Qaeda complicity. This was the conclusion of the CIA, reported fleetingly by the 9/11 Commission (at p. 60 & n.48

Meanwhile, according to al-Fadl (the aforementioned informant), among the top al Qaeda leaders who received instruction from Iran and Hezbollah in the early 90s was Saif al-Adel. As al Qaeda’s chief of military operations, Adel was not only a driving force behind the 1998 embassy bombings. He is, in addition, a longtime bin Laden intimate, largely responsible for al Qaeda’s infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (where the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in October 2000, killing 17 U.S. sailors), and believed to have trained some of the 9/11 hijackers.

Regarding 9/11 itself, suggestions at this point of an Iranian/Hezbollah role are sketchy but highly intriguing, while indications of Iran’s purposeful facilitation of al Qaeda are strong. As the 9/11 Commission summed up the state of play (at pp. 240-41):

[T]here is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers. There also is circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future muscle hijackers into Iran in November 2000.

Declining to draw the obvious inference, the Commission speculates that perhaps “Hezbollah was actually focusing on some other group of individuals traveling from Saudi Arabia … rather than the future hijackers.” It admits, however, that this would be “a remarkable coincidence.” Speaking of remarkable coincidences, the Commission also details at least two occasions when senior Hezbollah operatives were on the very same Iranian transit flights as the future hijackers.

Leaving these provocative dots unconnected, the Commission says it “found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.” That, of course, is far from a clean bill of health: The vast majority of al Qaeda members, including, the Commission concedes, many of the hijackers themselves “were probably not aware of the specific details of their future operation” during the time of their Iranian transit flights.

IRAN: AL QAEDA’S SAFE HARBOR
The sheer barbarity 9/11 prompted a vigorous American military response, routing the Taliban in Afghanistan and causing the terror network’s top ranks — i.e., those not killed or captured — to return or flee. In the aftermath, al Qaeda, as usual, found shelter from the storm in Iran. Among the many operatives still harbored in Iran — under what the mullahs laughably call “house arrest” — are Saif al-Adel and bin Laden’s own son, Saad. Indeed, the author Richard Miniter contends that Osama bin Laden himself fled to Iran for a time in 2002.The superb terrorism analyst Dan Darling relates that European intelligence services attribute the Iran/Qaeda safe-haven arrangement to the close tie between Zawahiri and Ahmad Vahidi (Commander, in 2001, of Iran’s elite Qods — or “Jerusalem” — Force).

[Rasputin]

With a soft place to land, al Qaeda reconvened the remnants of its shura (or “consultative”) council and reinvented itself. At a November 2002 summit in Iran, one of its top strategists, a Syrian named Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (aka “Abu Musab al-Suri”), urged that terrorist operations would now have to be dispersed outward to the network’s tentacles, rather than run from hubs like those al Qaeda once enjoyed in Sudan and Afghanistan. In “Current Trends in Islamist Ideology” (Vol. 2), an invaluable Hudson Institute series, terrorism researcher Reuven Paz describes Nasar as adamant that al Qaeda should redouble its efforts to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction — to the point of openly urging Iran and North Korea to press on with their nuclear projects in the expectation that jihadists will one day reap the benefits. As Nasar has put it:

The ultimate choice is the destruction of the United States by operations of strategic symmetry through weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear, chemical, or biological means, if the mujahideen can achieve it with the help of those who possess them or through buying them.
Here, it is worth pausing to recall a meeting just this spring between Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir, conducted even as Iran was being pressured (at least, what passes for pressure) to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Publicly and defiantly, Khamenei asserted, “Iran’s nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country,” and promised that “[t]he Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists.”

Meanwhile, Adel and Saad bin Laden have thrived in the safety of their Iranian redoubt. Using the Saudi cells Adel had been instrumental in building, they orchestrated the May 12, 2003 suicide bombings of three Riyadh housing complexes, a direct challenge to the House of Saud so reviled by bin Laden. Perhaps more significantly, Adel had a house guest in 2002: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

AL QAEDA — AND IRAN — IN MESOPOTAMIA
Zarqawi was also placed under “house arrest” by Iranian authorities. The Jordanians had long sought Zarqawi in connection with a plot to bomb an Amman hotel on the eve of the Millennium, as well as the October 2002 murder of an American diplomat, Laurence M. Foley. Jordan thus sought Zarqawi’s extradition. Iran did not merely reject Jordan’s demand; it gave Zarqawi safe-passage into Iraq.

The rest is history: Zarqawi proceeded to lead the ranks of “al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” in a ruthless jihad — bombings, torture, beheadings, and the fomenting of sectarian strife. To this day, the rampage continues, with Iraq at the abyss despite Zarqawi’s killing by U.S. forces six months ago.

Zarqawi, however, does not begin to describe Iran’s contribution to the anti-American war effort. As the Iraq Study Group acknowledged even as it proposed negotiations, Iran has armed and trained the militias that still, day after day, fight and kill U.S. and coalition troops. It has done so brazenly, and simultaneously with the hands-on support it provided to its forward militia, Hezbollah, in this summer’s jihad against Israel — transparently, a proxy war against the United States.

DEATH TO AMERICA
In a startling October 2005 speech at Iran’s annual “World Without Zionism” conference, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his audience, “We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years.” He elaborated:

In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels, and in their hearts they want to empty the Islamic world. ... They [ask]: “Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?” But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved.

“Very soon,” he haughtily proclaimed, Israel, “this stain of disgrace will vanish from the center of the Islamic world — and this is attainable.”

Is it any surprise Reuters and the German press reported this summer that the Iranians dispatched Saad bin Laden to the Lebanese border to assist Hezbollah’s attacks against Israelis? You’ll be shocked, I’m sure, to learn — as we mull negotiations with the Islamic Republic — that hundreds of Revolutionary Guards personnel reportedly joined in the fighting.

By the way, the Iranians have developed a missile called “Zelzad 1.” Its namesake is a Koranic verse that tells of a conflagration that precipitates Judgment Day. The missile is emblazoned with the slogan: “We will trample America under our feet. Death to America.”

Meanwhile, less than a month ago, MEMRI recorded Yahya Safavi, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, repeatedly referring to the United States as “the enemy” in an interview on Iranian television. “The Americans,” Safavi brayed, “have many weaknesses. In fact, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they clearly displayed their strengths and weaknesses. We have planned our strategy precisely on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses.” He added that Iran had been studying “the enemy” and determined that there wasn’t “any motivation among the American forces in Iraq. They are very cowardly…. When their commanders encounter a problem, they burst into tears. We did not see such spectacles in the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. I can therefore say that our advantage over the foreign forces is moral and human.”

[Rasputin]