Iran confirms it has senior al Qaeda members in custody

8.00am

TEHRAN - Iran has publicly acknowledged for the first time that it is holding some senior figures from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"Since the collapse of the Taleban regime we have arrested a large number of them (al Qaeda members)," Iran's Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi told reporters today after a weekly cabinet meeting.

"Many of them have been expelled and a large number of them are in our custody -- a mixture of big and small members."

He declined to identify any of the al Qaeda members currently held in Iran. "But I said big and small members," he reiterated.

It was the first public admission by a top government official that Iran is holding some key members of al Qaeda, the group Washington holds responsible for the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on US cities.

Previously Iran has said it was still trying to identify which al Qaeda members it had captured.

The admission came two days after US President George W Bush increased pressure on Iran by accusing it of harbouring and assisting terrorists.

In strongly worded comments at the White House he said: "This behaviour is completely unacceptable and states that support terror will be held accountable."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Wednesday he was unable to confirm Yunesi's information and added Washington was "not exactly sure" what the Iranians meant by the term "custody".

But he said Tehran's statement appeared to confirm "what we believe to be a significant al Qaeda presence in Iran".

Iran has flatly denied it harboured al Qaeda members.

"As soon as we get any information about those linked to al Qaeda or its members, we immediately start our intelligence activities and arrest them," Yunesi said.

"We are determined to confront them and we have done that. And this confrontation is not to make anyone in particular happy," he said.

Kuwait's Interior Minister Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah earlier this month said Kuwait had turned down an offer from Tehran to hand over al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.

Media reports and intelligence sources have also said Iran is believed to be holding al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, and its security chief Saif al-Adel.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari said on Wednesday some al Qaeda members would be tried in Iran, some extradited to their countries of origin and others deported back to the country they entered Iran from.

"We are ready to hand over those al Qaeda members with whose countries we have friendly ties," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

- REUTERS