Iran: It's Hamza Time

The mad mullahs have had some interesting developments of their own today, most notably the apparent extradition of Mustafa Hamza (now being denied by the Iranians), a major figure with in Gamaa al-Islamiyyah and as such commanded the al-Qaeda assassination team that planned to kill President Mubarak in 1995 during a state visit to Ethiopia.

The report of Hamza's extradition comes from the London-based al-Maqrizi Center for Historical Studies, a source I must admit that I'm not all that familiar with as far as reliability. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Egyptian security has confirmed that Hamza is indeed in their custody. He is presumably most uncomfortable as I type this.

If it's true, count Hamza being taken out of circulation as a victory in the war on terrorism. Far more significant are two other revelations contained in the above links:

1. Hamza was apparently among the al-Qaeda leaders living in Iran (having been under "house arrest" since 2003).
2. The other good news, especially for those of us without access to classified material, is that Rifa Ahmed Taha, the current leader of Gamaa al-Islamiyyah, has been in Egyptian custody ever since 2001. He has long been rumored to have been extradicted from Syria to Egypt shortly after 9/11, and this would seem to give truth to those rumors.
   Taha is one of the public signatories of bin Laden's infamous declaration of war, and was given the responsibility pre-9/11 of rebuilding al-Qaeda should anything ever happen to bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.

The Hamza case is the first time to my knowledge that Iran has extradicted a senior al-Qaeda figure to a foreign nation since allegations that it was harboring top al-Qaeda figures first surfaced.

One also wonders what to make of the equally fascinating claim by Kordestan Judiciary Head Mohammed Mehdi Khamesi that 5 al-Qaeda members had been arrested and were handed over to the IRGC. You'll pardon my questioning the IRGC's good intentions in this instance, but the fact that Khamesi even said this is quite odd given that Iran tends to vehemently deny allegations that al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam fighters are operating from with its borders.

On a far more cynical note, it would seem that the "trial" of Iran's "detained" al-Qaeda brass has finally concluded: with predictably ironic results:

Iran's judiciary has tried a number of arrested al Qaeda members and verdicts have been issued, a senior judiciary official was quoted as saying on Monday.

Tehran Justice Department head Abbasali Alizadeh told the semi-official Fars news agency Iran's "high-ranking officials are satisfied with the issued verdicts," but did not elaborate on what the verdicts had been.

This reminds me somewhat of the Taliban's offer to put bin Laden on trial before an Islamic court or the kangaroo courts that exist for terrorists in the Palestinian Territories. At a time when the EU would jump up and down to see any proof of Iranian non-complicity in international terrorism, the mullahs are denying that they may have in fact coughed up a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader and have resorted to an almost SNL-esque format to how they deal with the issue of their al-Qaeda detainees:

Q: How many al-Qaeda leaders are in Iran?

A: Lots of 'em.

Q: Where are they?

A: Custody. Super-secret custody.

Q: Can we see them?

A: No. We put 'em on trial, see? And we're gonna carry out the sentences in the shadows, so nobody sees us.

Q: Why's that?

A: Cuz then they'd come after us, and that'd be bad.

Q: Doesn't al-Qaeda already hate you just for being Shi'ites? Isn't that the whole reason why you guys'd never work together?

A: Yes, you're exactly right.

Q: Then why don't you want to make a public example of them, the way you do with the students and Canadian photographers?

A: Cuz we're a totalitarian theocracy, see. And we don't need no stinkin' public examples!

Q: I see. So how did the trials end?

A: With sentences. Super-secret sentences.

And so on and so forth. One question that might be asked to all of those who are so willing to take the mullahs at their word is this: if we were talking about Pakistan and Kashmiri terrorists or Tom DeLay and a House ethics probe, would you be so credulous in taking a figure similar to Alizadeh at his word?

But moving on ...

"If Iran does indeed have senior al Qaeda operatives, then we believe they should be handed over either to the United States or to a third country where they can be dealt with in a less opaque manner," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters in Washington.

Ereli said he had no confirmation al Qaeda members had been tried in Iran.

If the State Department won't even buy the mullahs' line on this one, it's likely a lost cause. Be interesting to see the Euros' reaction to this one. If they don't buy it, then all the smoke and mirrors will have been for naught...

Alizadeh said the trials had been conducted by a "special judge" after taking into account information presented by security and intelligence officials.

Unless that "special information" included testimony from people like Ahmed Vahidi as to how these merry folks came to reside inside Iran to begin with, color me extremely skeptical of all this barring further information.