Iran denies Washington claims three senior Al Qaeda figures based in the country

Foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said that Iran does not have 'any information about their presence on its soil'. He also reiterated Iran’s commitment to fighting terrorism.

TEHRAN // Iran on Tuesday denied claims by Washington that three senior Al Qaeda figures are based in the country.

The United States last week slapped sanctions on the three men, saying they were Al Qaeda members based in Iran.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has no information about the presence of these people on its own soil,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi was cited as saying by the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). Mr Qassemi also reiterated Iran’s commitment to fighting terrorism.

The three — Saudi national Faisal Jassim Al Khalidi, Egyptian national Yisra Bayumi and Algerian national Abu Bakr Ghumayn — were identified as “specially designated global terrorists”.

The the US treasury has accused them of liaising between the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda, and sending funds to Al Qaeda fighters in Syria. The sanctions froze any assets they may have in US jurisdictions and barred Americans from doing business with them.

According to the US, Al Khalidi is an Al Qaeda military commission chief and a former battalion commander. Bayumi is the group’s liaison with Iranian authorities and Ghumayn is in charge of Al Qaeda members who are living in Iran, the treasury said. It did not provide details on their whereabouts in Iran.

Mr Ghasemi urged the US to share its “precise information” about the three to “better combat terrorism”.

Iran considers Al Qaeda a terrorist group and Iranian security forces periodically report the arrest of its members. It has held several Al Qaeda members, both high-ranking and lower-level, since the September 11 attack on New York and Washington in 2001, although US officials say the precise conditions of their confinement are unclear.

The hardline Sunni extremist group considers Shiites to be heretics and has targeted them in the past.

In June, Iran announced it had broken up one of the “biggest terrorist plots” ever on its soil by extremists who were planning bombings in Tehran and elsewhere in the country. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian capital has not seen a major militant attack.

* Associated Press and Reuters