Senior al-Qaeda Figure Leaves Iran Amid a Series of Departures By Terrorist Suspects

A senior al-Qaeda figure with close ties to the terrorist group’s current leader has left Iran, where he had lived for years after fleeing American forces in Afghanistan in 2001, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials.

Thirwat Shihata is the latest terrorist suspect to leave Iran, raising questions about the country’s motives for allowing or forcing the departure of a string of al-Qaeda membersthat it had sheltered over the past decade.

U.S. officials said that Shihata, a 53-year-old Egyptian, was the deputy of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s current leader, when he ran Egyptian Islamic Jihad before it formally joined forces with Osama bin Laden in 1998.

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In 2011, Shihata issued a statement backing the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to the Long War Journal. He issued the statement from Iran.

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