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The Iranian government secretly has offered to cooperate with the United States in capturing fleeing al-Qaida terrorists and Taliban militia, U.S. officials said.
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According to the U.S. officials, Tehran has privately notified the United States that it would cooperate in capturing al-Qaida terrorists that flee into Iran from western Afghanistan through the porous border.
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U.S. intelligence officials are skeptical of the offer, noting that Iranian officials continue to covertly support terrorists. Recently, U.S. intelligence helped Israel intercept a shipment of Iranian arms intended for Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.
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The offer was made earlier this month and came after President Bush had identified Iran as one of three members of an "axis of evil" because of its support for state-sponsored terrorism.
The statement in the president's state-of-the-union speech drew a harsh response from Tehran.
In Quetta, Pakistan, the governor of Kandahar province said on Feb. 9 that Iran was interfering in some provinces in Afghanistan. The Iranians are providing financial assistance and weapons, said Gul Agha Sherzai.
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CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate hearing last week that "Tehran also has failed to move decisively against al-Qaida members who have relocated to Iran from Afghanistan."
Iranian Intelligence Minister Al Younesi denied last week that Iran has provided help to any al-Qaida members.
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"So far, not a single member of the al-Qaida network has been identified in Iran and America's claims in this regard are sheer lies," he told the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Younesi said Iranian "volunteers" who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and who moved from the Iranian-Pakistan border into Iran, had been arrested, expelled or taken to court. The infiltrators were not al-Qaida, he said, but people who sought to help the Taliban.
Iranian press accounts have stated that al-Qaida terrorists have donned Afghan clothes and crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan where they obtained forged identity papers and returned to Afghanistan.
The al-Qaida fighters are getting support from Pashtun tribes living in northern Pakistan who once supported the Taliban.
Other al-Qaida terrorists are said to have fled to Chechnya and Kashmir in the past several months.
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