The Daily Mirror, November 22, 2001
By Paul Gilfeather and Ian Miller
JACK Straw flew to Iran last night for a showdown over one of the world's most wanted terrorists.
The Foreign Secretary will meet the country's leaders today to demand support in the hunt for terror godfather Imad Mughniyeh.
The terrorist, who masterminded the kidnapping of Terry Waite and other Western hostages, is believed to have met Osama bin Laden's agents before September 11.
Yesterday Mr Straw confirmed Iranian support in the war on terrorism will top the agenda during his two-day trip to the region, which also includes Pakistan.
He will also tell the two states they have a vital role to play in forming Afghanistan's new power-sharing administration.
Experts believe Mughniyeh, founder of the Hezbollah suicide squads, played a significant part in the World Trade Center attacks.
And Mr Straw will ask Iran's President Khatami to provide intelligence on his whereabouts.
It is thought he has abandoned his home in the capital and fled south to the religious city of Qom, where he is sheltered by clerics.
Mr Straw raised the issue when he visited Tehran in September.
Mughniyeh is the world's leading airline hijacker and may have trained bin Laden's hit squad.
Former US President George Bush senior put a $2million bounty on his head after his friend, CIA chief William Buckley, was taken hostage and tortured to death.
Mughniyeh's suicide squads in Lebanon are blamed for the attack on the US Marine base in Beirut that killed more than 300 in 1983.
They were also behind a lorry bomb at the US embassy where 63 people died and another embassy bomb in 1984 which killed 14.
But it is his expertise as a hijacker which alerted intelligence chiefs - the system used to seize the planes on September 11 was reminiscent of Mughniyeh's style.

He is thought to have had plastic surgery after Mr Bush issued his "dead or alive" order. Mr Straw's visit to Iran could be overshadowed by hostility towards the coalition by religious clerics who have rejected pleas to support the US and Britain in the war on terror.
Meanwhile, a Muslim cleric living in west London yesterday denied that he was bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.
Abu Qatada, 40, is on a list of likely targets for internment when new anti-terror laws start.
Police say they do not yet have enough evidence to arrest the Palestinian who has nine aliases and gives three birth dates.
But a British security source said last night: "We're waiting to see the fine points of the new law but are confident that there'll be enough in there to detain him."
Qatada was convicted and jailed for life in Jordan in his absence for bomb attacks on tourists and given asylum in Britain in 1994.
He is alleged to have contacts with at least nine European al-Qaeda agents in six countries.
And a Spanish judge said Qatada was the alleged "spiritual leader" of bin Laden's army in Europe.
It follows a four-year surveillance operation of a Madrid-based network accused of involvement in the preparation and organisation of the September 11 atrocities.
However, speaking from his home in Acton yesterday, Qatada said: "Do I look like a demon? I am just a cleric for Islam. People talk to me all over the world."
The father of four insisted he has no links with al-Qaeda and said Spanish law was "not very good".
He also denied he had £180,000 in a bank account, which Treasury investigators froze, and said he was just a cleric who gave marital advice to couples in trouble.
He added: "In this country you just want a target to shoot at. I am a big target with a big belly.
"I have Arab dress and I have a beard, it is easy to choose me."