Iran & AQ: a safe haven or holding cell?

[davidbfpo]

Within a longer article Hamid Hussain (on the thread for the Pakistani-Arab relationship) has this passage on this issue:

Now looking at the time line after Bin Ladin’s killing, it is clear that in 2010 Iran exchanged Bin Ladin’s family members for its intelligence operative Heshmatollah Atterzadeh. He was working under the cover of commercial attaché at Iranian consulate in Peshawar from where he was abducted by al-Qaeda operatives and kept in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Tehran didn’t bother to inform Pakistanis even after the exchange was done. Leader of Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansur was travelling on a Pakistani passport with an Iranian visa and coming from Iran when a drone sent him packing back to his creator. He was surely not going for a holiday trip to Iran.