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Iranian official: We protected al-Qaeda terrorists before 9/11

A top Iranian official has admitted for the first time that Iran knowingly helped al-Qaeda terrorists — including some of the 9/11 attackers — travel secretly through the Middle East.

“Their movements [through Iran] were under the complete supervision of the Iranian intelligence,” Mohammad-Javad Larijani said in a recently surfaced interview.

That was one of the main accusations leveled against Iran in the U.S. government’s 9/11 Commission Report, which named the nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Larijani, the secretary of the Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights and a former diplomat, is a prominent member of the regime.

“Our government agreed not to stamp the passports of some of them” when al-Qaeda members passed through Iran on trips between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, Larijani confirmed.





The ruse protected the terrorists from prosecution by Saudi authorities, he said – and shielded at least one of the pilots who turned passenger planes into deadly missiles on 9/11.

Larijani’s confession came in a May 30 interview on Iranian state TV. Al-Arabiya News reported on the interview on Friday, and the English translation was confirmed by the Daily Caller.

It buttresses an April 30 court ruling that ordered Iran to pay $6 billion to families of 9/11 victims for the country’s role in supporting the terrorists who attacked the U.S. in 2001, taking 2,977 lives.

“We know we were right,” said Tara Bane of Yardley, Pennsylvania, one of the plaintiffs in the case. Her husband Michael worked for Marsh & McLennan on the 100th floor of the North Tower.





“We didn’t need them to admit it,” Bane told The Post. “But this is maybe some vindication.”

“This seems to confirm what the judge in the case found,” attorney Robert Haefele agreed.

“But the bulk of the case is focused on trying to uncover the role of the Saudi kingdom in 9/11,” he added. “That’s what the families are trying to do here.”

“It’s just a matter of time” before state sponsors of terror admit the truth, Bane observed. “Maybe someone there has some sense,” she said of Iran.

“If they did, the world would be a better place.”





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