If I was OBL and I knew that American troops are combing every cave in Pakistan and Afghanistan to get me dead or alive, I would certainly prefer to seek shelter in Iran. And even if there are differences between Ahmadinedjad and Bin Laden, having a greater common enemy might as well unite them, and it is not totally out of the question that a known fanatical Islamist such as Erdogan at least would not help the infidels in this case. Even if Ahamdinedjad and Erdogan have nothing to do with it, it would still make sense for Bin Laden to rather hide somewhere where they can't search for him right now. And all it takes for that to be possible is someone having smuggled him over the border (even though the Iranian border is not as porous as the one between Afghanistan and Pakistan, plenty of drugs are still smuggled across that border, so why not people, too) and one person being willing to hide him. It is not nearly as far-fetched as you are trying to make it out to be.
Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud.
No, that's compeletely false. OBL would rather be captured by the US than Khamenei. At least with the US, it will be public (PR move for "martyrdom" bla bla) and he will be killed quickly. There is no telling what the Iranians would do to him after he bombed one of the most sacred sites of Shiite Muslims (the Imam Ali Mosque in Iraq which includes Imam Ali's resting place and shrine). He bombed it once, killing a top Shiite scholar with I think 80+ people. Then he tried to do it again (last year I think?). OBL = terrorist to Iran and US. In fact, Iran and the US are more likely to be united by "common enemy". You have your opinion, I have mine. I just want to make sure you know that there is no logical basis or historical precedence for you opinion. Not a lick of evidence. Why don't you spend the day searching about what Al Qaeda has done to and said about Shiite Muslims? Google is your friend.
Is the US also guilty of giving the hijackers safe passage? The US gave visas to 9/11 hijackers and allowed them to travel on airlines to or from the nation. The US allowed the hijackers into its borders.
[rquoter] DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources disclose that the purpose of airing their precise whereabouts at this time, aside from implicating the Turkish leader, was first, to warn al Qaeda's leaders that their hideout was blown and they had better move on - which would make them easier to catch; and, second, to nudge US president Barak Obama into a decision to go after them. A rare opportunity may now be building up to capture the world's most wanted terrorist, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report. Last December, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged the United States has not had any good intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts in years. Until recently, the elusive master-terrorist was generally thought to have gone to ground in the wilder parts of Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.[/rquoter] Very telling. Shouldn't we have more than a "But, THEY said he was there" before we start another war? Not that I don't think Amanutjob doesn't need a good arse-kicking, but seriously... is this all it takes? I sure hope not.
What in God's name is this "safe transit" you speak of? Do you mean transit, like every other country of the world would've given to them? Al Qaeda consider themselves Sunnis. Not all Sunnis are Al Qaeda supporters. 911 hijackers were unknown to anyone including the US, Germany, Iran, everyone. Heck, there are terrorist Al Qaeda cells within a 200 mile radius of you RIGHT NOW. Is the US giving them "safe custody"? That's a putrid comment. Very little thought put into it. Weak WEAK comment. Also, Al Qaeda have been far more monitored post-9/11 than they were pre-9/11. My God, there is just so much wrong with that one sentence. I can go on forever. But I'll leave it. lol The funny thing is, we all know you don't believe it. I think ATW believes what he's saying. But I don't believe that you do. It's so strange, as if you're in a war to push a certain kind of information on everyone to push your agenda, with no regard to truth. Why you routinely shatter your credibility intentionally: I don't know.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html 9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran By Adam Zagorin and Joe Klein Friday, Jul. 16, 2004 Next week's much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks. The senior official also told TIME that the report will note that Iranian officials approached the al-Qaeda leadership after the bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S., but the offer was turned down by bin Laden because he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia. The Iran-al Qaeda contacts were discovered and presented to the Commissioners near the end of the bipartisan panel's more than year-long investigation into the sources and origins of the 9/11 attacks. Much of the new information about Iran came from al-Qaeda detainees interrogated by the U.S. government, including captured Yemeni al-Qaeda operative Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, who organized the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and from as many as 100 separate electronic intelligence intercepts culled by analysts at the NSA. The findings were sent to the White House for review only this week. But Commission members have been hinting for weeks that their report would have some Iran surprises. As the 9/11 Commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, said in June, "We believe....that there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq." These findings follow a Commission staff report, released in June, which suggested that al-Qaeda may have collaborated with Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, a key American military barracks in Saudi Arabia. Previously, the attack had been attributed only to Hezbollah, with Iranian support. A U.S. indictment of bin Laden filed in 1998 for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa said al-Qaeda "forged alliances . . . with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States." But the Commission comes to no firm conclusion on al-Qaeda's involvement in the Khobar disaster. Since 9/11 the U.S. has held direct talks with Iran—and through intermediaries including Britain, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia—concerning the fate of scores of al-Qaeda that Iran has acknowleded are in the country, including an unspecified number of senior leaders, whom one senior U.S. official called al-Qaeda's "management council". The U.S. as well as the Saudis have unsuccessfully sought the repatriation of this group, which is widely thought to include Saad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, as well of other key al-Qaeda figures.
Leave him alone. He won't believe it. He won't believe that when Iran had any sort of ties with Al Qaeda (pre-9/11) it was only when Al Qaeda's only goal was to eliminate the Saudi government. He won't believe that Iran helped topple the Taliban, even if several US troops acknowledged their presence during the Afghan war. He won't believe that Imam Ali in Shiite Islam is like the Pope in Catholic Christianity, and that Khamenei wouldn't turn a blind eye to Al Qaeda's attempts to bomb his shrine, tomb and mosque. He won't believe that OBL has shared more smiles with the American government than he has with the Iranian government. He won't believe that OBL ran the Russians out of Afghanistan, and that the Russians had good relations with Iran. He won't believe that OBL does not believe in the Iranian political system because of the dictatorial function of the supreme leader. He won't believe the heaps of lies which came out of the intelligence reports from Bush's government.... but he will believe this. He will believe that Al Qaeda captives, while being tortured, said that they had relations with Iran and it was absolutely true, despite no other supporting evidence. We've seen it before. Sometimes, if you want to believe something, you'll make it true.
They hanged a guy who they claimed was a U.S. backed "counter-revolutionary" for committing acts of armed robbery, murder, and assassination against Iranian military and officials. Hardly the same as OBL, someone engaged in jihad against the "Great Satan". I don't know where OBL is. He could be hiding down the street, I don't know. (Come to think of it, I haven't met the new neighbors yet...). However, I would be more inclined to believe that he's hiding out with someone who is similar to him geo-politically speaking re: the U.S. and Israel.
All things that OBL has done and topped. He tried to blow up the corpse of the deceased father of the Shiite religion. Just to put it into perspective, Imam Ali to Shiite Islam is very much like Jesus PBUH in Christianity. It's ridiculous. OBL is as likely to be in Iran as he is to be in China. Khamenei would skin him alive. Iranians helped topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. There's no connection.
