IRAN ACKNOWLEDGED for the first time last month that it was holding some senior al-Qaida figures and said it planned to extradite some of them to friendly countries.
       Some we believe are quite high-level. We would like to get access to them and interrogate them to try and head off whatever plans they have in the works, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in the Australian city of Canberra.
       Much of the al-Qaida leadership is dead or in hiding. The ability to conduct terrorism is more difficult, but having said that they are still out there...the battle goes on, he said. Irans government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh has said al-Qaida members could only be handed over to countries with which Iran had extradition agreements.
       He said Iran did not have such an agreement with the United States, which blames al-Qaida for the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
       Ramazanzadeh has declined to reveal the identity of the al-Qaida members in Irans custody for security reasons. He said that arrested members of the group who had committed crimes in Iran would be prosecuted by Iranian courts.