Opposition mounts to Iranian leader visiting ground zero site in New York

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(AP)
Opposition is building to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s request to visit ground zero in New York because of his regime’s reported ties to terrorist groups.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Opposition is mounting to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s request to visit ground zero in New York because he leads a regime that reportedly helped train members of al Qaeda and provided them safe travel before the terrorist group attacked the World Trade Center.

Rudy Giuliani, the New York mayor on Sept. 11, 2001, and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said, “Under no circumstances should the NYPD or any other American authority assist President Ahmadinejad in visiting ground zero.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, has called Ahmadinejad’s proposed visit “unacceptable.”

Ahmadinejad will be in New York next week to attend a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. He touched off a firestorm of protest in the city by requesting that he be allowed to pay a visit Monday to what many Americans consider hallowed ground.

The 9/11 Commission’s detailed report on the attack said Iran, a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, trained al Qaeda in explosives in the 1990s. Tehran also allowed known al Qaeda terrorists to pass from Afghanistan through Iran to avoid detection.

The report said up to 10 of the 19 hijackers who struck New York and the Pentagon and crashed a fourth aircraft in a Pennsylvania field “traveled into or out of Iran” in 2000 and 2001.

“Iranian border inspectors would be told not to place telltale stamps in the passports of these travelers,” the commission’s 2005 report said. “Such arrangements were particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al Qaeda.”

One 9/11 hijacker traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, in the company of a senior leader of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, according to the report. Three of the hijackers flew from Saudi Arabia to Beirut, and then went to Iran on the same flight as another Hezbollah leader. “There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers,” the bipartisan commission report said. “There also is circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future hijackers into Iran in November 2000.”

The commission said “we have found no evidence” that Tehran knew of the 9/11 plot beforehand.

Iran, a Shiite-led country, and al Qaeda, a Sunni terrorist network, would not be assumed to be allies since they take different views of Islam. Yet, the two have cooperated against a common enemy: the West.

The Pentagon has said that Iran is harboring members of al Qaeda, including relatives of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Iran, the U.S. has said, supported Saudi Hezbollah in carrying out the 1996 truck bombing of Kohbar Towers, which killed 19 U.S. service members.

rscarborough@dcexaminer.com

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