Iraqi government whitewashed the investigation CAIRO: Iranian involvement in the disappearance of Egyptian ambassador to Iraq Ihab Al-Sharif in 2005 cannot be proven conclusively, yet some things point in that direction an analyst has told The Daily Star Egypt. "In any assassination, if no group has claimed responsibility then it is very hard to find out who was responsible for sure. However some clues do point to Iranian involvement. Iran benefits from his death, Waheed Abdel-Meguid, head of Arab research at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies told The Daily Star Egypt. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit had said Thursday that "we cannot claim who is behind the disappearance of Al-Sherif or his whereabouts . Aboul Gheit was talking to the press after receiving Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern who is on a four day trip to the Middle East. Abdel-Meguid said Al-Sherif was abducted while on his way to meet members of the predominantly Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) as part of an Egyptian initiative to mediate between warring factions in Iraq. Several AMS leaders have been labeled rogue elements by the current Iraqi government and are wanted for questioning. Harith Al-Dhari, a leading member of the AMS, was recently in Cairo. On Wednesday, he was in Damascus. Abdel-Meguid says it was the AMS that accused Iran of the abduction saying that Iranian intelligence abducted the Egyptian ambassador and handed him to Al-Qaeda so as not to be directly involved. "This was because the Iranians wanted to prevent an Arab role in Iraq. Aboul Gheit refused to directly comment on a recent Al-Ahram article which claimed that Iran was behind the abduction and murder of the Egyptian ambassador, kidnapped in 2005. "We don't know what exactly happened to Al-Searif, he said. "This is a human tragedy by all standards and we have conducted numerous investigations but we haven't reached anything. According to Abdel-Meguid the investigation carried out at the time by the Iraqi government was a white wash, to quickly sweep the matter under the carpet. And then Prime Minister Al-Gaafari declared at the time that Arab officials were meeting with extremist groups. "This cannot mean he is conducting a cover up for the benefit of his enemies Al-Qaeda, so this is a clue that Iran was involved, Abdel-Meguid said. Additionally, according to Abdel-Meguid the Iranian intelligence presence in Iraq is highly decentralized and given much freedom, so it is possible that the abduction was carried out without direct permission from the higher ups in the chain of command. However, Abdel-Meguid added, "With all that, there is no tangible proof of Iranian involvement. Egypt's biggest-circulation daily Al-Ahram had claimed in a front page article published Sunday that Al-Sherif was killed by Iranian intelligence in 2005. The article cited "diplomatic sources who said that Iranian intelligence "stood behind the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of Al-Sherif with the aim of preventing Egyptian interaction in Iraq. Nabil Abdel-Fatah, an expert from Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told The Daily Star Egypt, that the newspaper report should be dismissed because it relies on unnamed sources. Abdel-Fatah added that "this is a dangerous accusation, not only because of the two countries involved, but also because it displays the insidious intervention of [Iran] in the affairs of [Iraq]. An accusation like this must be verified before publication and more information is needed on the circumstances surrounding the death of Al-Sherif. But Mohammed Abdel-Salam, an Iraq expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies believes events in Iraq cannot paint a clear enough picture to determine whether Egyptian assistance to the Iraqi people is welcomed or being pushed out of the war-ravaged country by Iranian elements. "The situation is not yet understood. Is it related to Egyptian support for the recent change in US policy towards Iraq, or is it just part of the everyday violence and kidnappings that occur in Iraq? It is not known, but it being due to the former is very plausible. Last week, a worker for the Egyptian embassy in Baghdad disappeared in what some analysts say could be related to Egypt's position regarding the violence in Iraq and its refusal to hand over Al-Dhari to the Iraqi government.
