Iran force 'protecting bin Laden's son'
Washington |By Douglas Farah and Dana Priest | 15-10-2003
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The elite Iranian force believed to be protecting Saad bin Laden and two dozen Al Qaida leaders is one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' five branches, and has been given the mission of "exporting the Islamic revolution" by training, arming and collaborating with foreign terrorist groups.
The Jerusalem Force, also known as Al Quds Force, is highly trained and well-funded. It has provided instruction to more than three dozen "foreign militant groups in paramilitary, guerrilla and terrorism" tactics, according to a recent US intelligence analysis.
The Jerusalem Force's former commander, Ahmad Vahidi, allegedly helped plan the 1994 bombing of the Amia Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 civilians were killed and 230 injured, according to Argentine intelligence officials and others.
The group has also maintained ties with the Al Qaida terrorist network for more than a decade, according to US and European intelligence officials. Senior Al Qaida leaders first met and formed a tactical alliance with the nascent Jerusalem Force in Sudan in the early 1990s, according to intelligence officials.
Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, used his decade-old relationship with Vahidi, then commander of the Jerusalem Force, to negotiate a safe harbour for some of Al Qaida's leaders who were trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001, according to a European intelligence official.
The group is "a state within a state, and that is why they are able to offer protection to Al Qaida," one European intelligence analyst said.
© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
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It is also believed that they're protecting Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Elvis, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Adolf Hitler ;)