Bin Laden living in lap of luxury in Iran?
Al-Qaeda chief residing in comfortable complex with family, practicing falconry, documentary says
A new documentary on the world of falconry claims that Osama Bin Laden is living in a comfortable, private compound north of Tehran, surrounded by his family and under the watchful eye of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
The story was reported by Fox News.
Alan Parrot's film, Feathered Cocaine, describes the secret world of falconers and falconry, which he says Bin Laden pursues freely.
Parrot was himself the chief falconer of the Shah regime in Iran, and also worked for the Saudi and United Arab Emirates' royal families.
The documentary shows a testimony by his acquaintance, a weapons' dealer in northern Iran who says he personally met bin-Laden six times on hunting retreats since 2003.
Parrot told the Fox network that he had been able to obtain the rare testimony only because one of his employees had saved the man's life.
“One of my men saved his life and this was the repayment," he said. "He was asked to talk. He wasn’t happy about it.”
He added that he had tried to get the US Administration involved by providing them with the telemetry setting for the falcons Bin Laden was flying, but that they had never called him to follow up on the information. They could locate him to a one-square-mile area using those unique signals” he said.
A Pentagon spokesman refused comment.
Another documentary that supports Parrot's claim is that by Robert Baer, a harsh critic of US policy in the Middle East. Baer, whom the movie Syriana was based on, says that while serving in the CIA he learned that falconry was one of the key ways terror organizations were funded.
It was not the first time claims were made regarding the al-Qaeda leader living in Iran. Tehran agreed to take in 35 of the organization's leaders after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the US has previously accused the regime of supporting it.
Last year, reports said one of Osama's wives was living in Tehran along with six of his children and 11 of his grandchildren. The press got word of this when one of the girls living in the complex which Parrot claims houses Bin Laden ran away and asked for sanctuary at the Saudi Embassy.
