Unusual request: A senior American official has openly asked for Iranian cooperation in thwarting al-Qaeda terror plots.
Daniel Benjamin, the counterterrorism coordinator at the US State Department, charged that al-Qaeda's headquarters in Pakistan's Waziristan, close to the border with Afghanistan, is involved in plots to strike Europe.
In an interview with the London-based Arab-language newspaper al-Hayat, he said that American officials are aware that al-Qaeda activists are passing through Iran.
The senior US official urged officials in Tehran to detain them.
Benjamin made it clear that the US observed Qaeda men in Iran, but added that he was unaware of the circumstances of their arrival in the country and what their status was, that is, whether they are be detained or under house arrest.
Benjamin also told al-Hayat that al-Qaeda currently poses genuine danger to the Yemenite government. However, the US official expressed his confidence that Yemenite President Ali Abdullah Saleh will be able to cope with the challenge.