FILE PHOTO: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian speaks during a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Damascus, Syria January 14, 2023. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran denied U.S. claims that Al Qaeda's leader Seif al-Adel is based in the country, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on Twitter on Thursday, a day after Washington aligned itself with a U.N. statement locating Adel in Iran.
"I advise the officials of the White House to stop the failed game of Iran-phobia, making news about the leader of Al-Qaeda and linking him to Iran is laughable," Amirabdollahian wrote.
Seif al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer who is a high-ranking member of al Qaeda with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, is now the "uncontested" leader of the militant group, according to a new U.N. report on the organisation.
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it aligned with U.N. assessments that Seif al-Adel is based in Iran.
Adel was indicted and charged in November 1998 by a U.S. federal grand jury for his role in the bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others.
Following the African bombings, the former Egyptian army lieutenant colonel moved to southeastern Iran, where he lived under the protection of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, according to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice programme.
He and other Al Qaeda leaders were placed under house arrest in April 2003 by Iran, which released him and four others in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped in Yemen.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Toby Chopra)
