It is believed that Iran is protecting Saad Bin Laden, the son of Osama Bin Laden, and other Al Qaeda leaders including Saif al-Adel who fled Afghanistan in 2001. The Al Qaeda leadership holds regular meetings in eastern Iran according to a new report.

Al Qaeda leadership is meeting regularly in eastern Iran according to a new National Intelligence Estimate.
The New York Sun reported:


One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure.

In November 2006, The Telegraph reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to persuade al-Qa'eda to promote a pro-Iranian activist to a senior position within its leadership.

That is a consensus judgment from a final working draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate, titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland," on the organization that attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The estimate, which represents the opinion of America's intelligence agencies, is now finished, and unclassified conclusions will be shared today with the public.

The classified document includes four main sections, examining how Al Qaeda in recent years has increased its capacity to stage another attack on American soil; how the organization has replenished the ranks of its top leaders; nations where Al Qaeda operates, and the status of its training camps and physical infrastructure.

The three main Al Qaeda leaders in Iran include Mr. Adel; the organization's minister of propaganda, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, and the man who some analysts believe is the heir apparent to Mr. bin Laden one of his sons, Saad bin Laden. The locations of the senior leaders include a military base near Tehran called Lavizan; a northern suburb of Tehran, Chalous; an important holy city, Mashod, and a border town near Afghanistan, Zabul, the draft intelligence estimate says.
In 2005 it was reported by Iran Press News that Iran was sheltering Saad, Mohammed and Othman bin Laden as well as other Al Qaeda members from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, north Africa and Europe.

Al Qaeda leader Saif Al-Adel fled Afghanistan in 2001 along with Osama's son Saad and has found protection in Iran since that time.