Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Al Qaeda operatives traveled through Iran to and from their training camps in Afghanistan because it was convenient and was considered free from Western surveillance, unlike the traditional route in neighboring Pakistan, according to court records, intelligence officials and interviews with Al Qaeda recruits.
The final report of the Sept. 11 commission to be released Thursday is expected to state that at least eight of the 19 hijackers transited through Iran in the months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean has said that the use of Iran as a transit route raises the possibility that Iran and the Al Qaeda terrorist network had an operating relationship, although the report apparently offers no further details of such a link.
Opponents of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq have seized upon the Iran information as evidence that the administration was misguided in its fixation on Iraq. Iran, they say, appears to have ties to terrorists at least as close.
Intelligence officials, however, downplay the significance of the travel route. One senior U.S. intelligence official who has seen the commission report, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Islamic jihadists, particularly Saudis, "routinely were allowed to transit Iran without being impeded or without being questioned carefully or without having their documents marked in any way."
The official stressed that "this was not unique to Al Qaeda" and that the travel was not evidence of special Iranian collaboration with the terrorist network.
U.S. communications intercepts revealed the use of Iran routes months after the Sept. 11 attacks. This information was bolstered by data from wiretaps of an Al Qaeda cell in Milan in early 2001. Tunisians in the cell discussed the Iranian route during a conversation wiretapped by Italian police, according to court papers. The Tunisians, who have since been convicted on terrorism-related charges, said their contacts in Iran ensured quick and safe passage, but the wiretaps did not suggest the involvement of Iranian officials, Italian authorities said.
Later it was also determined that Ramzi Binalshibh, identified as a coordinator of the Sept. 11 attacks, had flown to Tehran en route to Afghanistan in 2000.
