Al Qaeda said to have migrated to Iran

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's intelligence community believes that the operational base of al Qaeda has shifted to Iran from Pakistan after the arrest of the network's military operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Mohammed was arrested by Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in Rawalpindi on Feb. 28.

Pakistani intelligence officials said they since received cogent information that several key al Qaeda fugitives who were hiding in Pakistan had moved to Iran.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview during his Washington trip late last month that some al Qaeda operatives "certainly" had relocated to Iran in the wake of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, although he could not say for certain who the fugitives were.

"Al Qaeda is on the run, and they are transiting to all the neighboring countries," Gen. Musharraf told editors and reporters at a luncheon June 26 at The Washington Times. "Certainly, they are transiting to Iran as well, although we can't say for sure how senior these people are."

Saif Al-Adel, an Egyptian national who has been appointed the military chief of al Qaeda after the arrest of Mohammed, is hiding in the Iranian city of Zahedan, which borders with Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence officials say.

Other leaders include Osama bin Laden's eldest son, Saad bin Laden; Yaaz bin Sifat, a top ranking al Qaeda planner; Abu Mohammad al-Masri; and various former ministers of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government.

A former mayor of Kabul during the Taliban regime, Mohammed Islam Haani, was arrested recently by Afghan troops while trying to cross into Iran.

Intelligence officials believe that some 250 al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are hiding in Iran.