Iran dismisses US claims it gave al-Qaeda safe haven

IRAN admitted yesterday that some al-Qaeda operatives behind the 11 September attacks may have passed through the country from Afghanistan - but dismissed as "fabrications" reports from the United States that Tehran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks.

Mr Asefi was responding to an 11 September Commission report - expected on Thursday - that says Iran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks in the United States by providing eight to ten al-Qaeda hijackers with safe passage to and from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

John McLaughlin, the CIA’s acting director, said yesterday it was known for some time that hijackers passed through Iran but he would not implicate the Iranian government.

"We have no evidence that there is some sort of official connection between Iran and 9/11," he said.

Iran insists it has made a significant contribution to the war on terror by arresting agents of al-Qaeda, but the US accuses Tehran of harbouring al-Qaeda fugitives. Tehran also complains that, instead of rewarding Iran, George Bush, the US president, included the country in the list of his "axis of evil" partners together with North Korea and pre-war Iraq. Mr Asefi said that Iran will remain committed to fighting al-Qaeda. "Iran has proved it is against terrorists and extremism," he said.

And he said Iran was not surprised by the allegations. "The more we approach the [US] presidential elections, we will witness more of such news fabrications," he said.

The spokesman said that US was accusing Iran of harbouring al-Qaeda to cover "its defeat in Iraq".

The intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, said last year that Iran was holding "a large number of small and big-time elements of al-Qaeda". Iran says it has handed over more than 500 suspected al-Qaeda operatives, mostly Saudis, to their home countries.

American counter-terrorism officials have said a handful of senior al-Qaeda operatives who fled to Iran after the war in Afghanistan three years ago may have developed a working relationship with a secretive military unit linked to Iran’s religious hard-liners. Iran has rejected the charges.