TEHRAN – Saudi Arabia and Syria are flexing their diplomatic muscles to convince Iran to handle over Eman Bin Laden, a daughter of Al-Qaeda leader, who is currently taking refuge at the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.

 
"The Saudi government wants us to allow her to go to Jeddah, while her mother wants us to send her to Damascus," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told IslamOnline.net during an interview in Tehran.

Eman was arrested by Iranian border forces in 2001 along with her brothers Saad (now 29), Osman (25), Hamza (20), Bakr (15) and sister Fatima (22) along with their stepmother Um Hamza.

They were all trying to cross into Iran from neighboring Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban regime following the US invasion.

The Taliban regime had hosted Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda members for years and refused to hand them over to the Americans after claiming the 9/11 attacks.

Following their arrest, the bin Ladens reportedly spent the next nine years in a Tehran suburb under the watchful eyes of the Iranian security agencies.

A few weeks back, Eman managed to contact her brother Abdullah, who runs an advertisement company in Jeddah, while shopping in a Tehran Bazaar.

Abdullah, who disassociated himself from his father in 1996 when he was moving to Afghanistan from Sudan, advised her to immediately go to the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has confirmed his government was in talks with Iran to secure the release of Eman.

But the Iranians received a request from Syria on behalf of Eman's mother Najwa to allow her daughter to travel to Syria.

Najwa, the first wife of Bin Laden, married him in 1974 but left him with their son Omar shortly before the US invasion of Afghanistan.

She moved to Syria and has been living in Damascus for the past nine years.

Girl Choice

Iran seems to be caught between Syria, one of its current strategic allies, and Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight Arab-Muslim country and a major player in the region.

"We are in a fix over this issue as both countries want us to entertain their respective demands," said Mottaki.

"Therefore we have decided to take a decision in line with Vienna Convention in this regard."

Iran has decided to give Eman the choice of her next destination.

"We have started preliminary work vis-à-vis preparation of her travel documents," explained the top diplomat.

"We will let the girl decide where she wants to go as soon as her travel documents are completed."

Intelligence officials and Iranian security sources say Bakar bin Laden has already united with his mother in Damascus and is trying to convince Eman to join them.

Bin Laden is believed to have married four times and fathered 26 children.