U.S. Traces Iran's Ties to Terror Through a Lebanese

By JAMES RISEN

One of the world's most wanted men has been operating for years with the protection and backing of the Iranian intelligence services.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — One of the world's most wanted men, charged with the terrorist hijacking of a T.W.A. jetliner in 1985 and implicated in a recent shipment of arms from Iran to the Palestinians, has been operating for years with the protection and backing of the Iranian intelligence services, according to Central Intelligence Agency documents.

The man, Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese and a leader in the Hezbollah guerrilla group, has frequently consulted with officials from two of Iran's intelligence agencies, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the more radical Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, officials say.

This history of Iranian collusion with Hezbollah, which the United States recently added to its list of terrorists, meaning that its financial backers can have their assets seized, is described in secret intelligence reports provided to The New York Times by intelligence officials.

These officials have become increasingly frustrated that American policy has been so focused on Osama bin Laden that it has not paid enough attention to other dangerous men like Mr. Mugniyah, who now has the same American price tag on his head as Mr. bin Laden — $25 million.

The officials are also eager to show that despite signs of warming between Washington and Tehran, Iran still remains a threat.

American intelligence officials say they have sometimes received credible tips about Mr. Mugniyah's presence in Beirut, but the United States has never attempted to bomb his hideouts or to capture him, according to former American intelligence officials.

In one instance, in the early 1990's, the United States found that Mr. Mugniyah was on a commercial flight that stopped in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi officials refused to arrest him and allowed him to leave the country, they said.

Among the assertions made by American officials of Mr. Mugniyah's anti-American violence are these:

¶Mr. Mugniyah was behind the bombings of the United States Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. A car bomb at the embassy in April that year killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, while a truck bomb in October at the Marine compound killed 241 American troops. Neither case has been solved.

¶He was behind the torture and murder of William Buckley, the C.I.A. station chief in Beirut, in 1984; the kidnapping and murder of Lt. Col. William Richard Higgins of the Marines, who was on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon in 1988; and, through the Islamic Jihad Organization, the seizure of Western hostages in Beirut during the 1980's.

¶His organization may have played a role in the bombing of the Khobar Towers military residence in Saudi Arabia in 1996, in which 17 Americans were killed. The United States has charged that a group known as Saudi Hezbollah, with backing from Iranian officials, was behind the truck bomb. But one American intelligence report says that Talal Hamiyah, a senior lieutenant under Mr. Mugniyah, was involved in the Saudi Hezbollah group during the 1990's.

¶In May 1996, the lieutenant to Mr. Mugniyah told a colleague that the Islamic Jihad Organization, an offshoot of Hezbollah controlled by Mr. Mugniyah, was prepared to carry out terrorist operations before that year's election in Israel, but had been directed not to do so by Iran.

Mr. Mugniyah is also wanted for the hijacking in June 1985 of a T.W.A. flight during which an American was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. It is the only terrorist action for which he has been indicted in the United States.

That operation, like many others, was conducted with direct Iranian support, the intelligence reports contend. One piece of evidence is that Feridun Mehdi Nezhad, a Revolutionary Guards officer, was with Mr. Mugniyah at the Beirut airport, where the plane was held during a lengthy standoff, according to an American intelligence report.

The officials — current and former — who have knowledge of the Mugniyah case complained that the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, has been generally reluctant to hold Iran accountable for its support for terrorism.

The State Department officially describes Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Indeed, military and intelligence officials expressed concern last week that Iran might be trying to intervene in Afghanistan to prevent the new pro- Western government from gaining control throughout the country. Iran has insisted that it has always opposed Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime, and would not provide shelter to fugitives from the American military.

But there is some evidence of contacts between Mr. Mugniyah, Iran and Mr. bin Laden during the 1990's. Mr. Mugniyah held at least one meeting with Mr. bin Laden, apparently to discuss a terrorist relationship, according to statements made in federal court by a former close aide to Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Mugniyah's Islamic Jihad Organization sometimes conducted operations on its own, but always consulted with Iran first, the intelligence reports say. Fo example, the hijacking of a Kuwait Airways flight by the Islamic Jihad Organization in April 1988 was given advance approval by Iran, although the operation itself was run strictly by Mr. Mugniyah's group, according to an American report.

Born in 1962 near Tyre, a coastal town in southern Lebanon, Mr. Mugniyah studied engineering briefly at the American University of Beirut, but as a teenager joined Al Fatah, Yasir Arafat's organization. After the Palestine Liberation Organization was forced out of Lebanon when Israel invaded in 1982, Mr. Mugniyah joined radical Shiite-based groups in Lebanon, and rapidly moved up the terrorist ranks with Iranian support.

He now uses both Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad Organization for his operations. He has traveled frequently between Lebanon, Syria and Iran over the years, and American officials believe he is now living in Beirut.

In an illustration of how thoroughly Hezbollah was penetrated by Iran, one intelligence reports says that on Feb. 29, 1992, a representative from Iran's intelligence service was allowed to sit on the Hezbollah Council in Beirut.

Another said that at about the same time, two Iranians were members of Hezbollah's military committee, including a deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Still another report said the Revolutionary Guards administered Hezbollah's intelligence planning section until 1989, after which a Lebanese officer was named to run the unit.

In the early 1990's, after Iranian intelligence set up a foreign operational group of the Revolutionary Guards dedicated to the eventual recovery of Jerusalem, the chief of staff of that group, Ali Bani-Lawhi, was in Beirut working with Hezbollah, according to an American report.

In November 1996, Habibollah Ajaebi, director of the counterintelligence directorate of Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, visited Beirut and met with Mr. Mugniyah, apparently in an effort to assess Hezbollah's security, according to an American report.