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IRNA Says We Got Him:

The Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, is one of the state propaganda--er, news--outfits in Iran. They are reporting as of yesterday that Osama bin Laden has been captured. As the story points out, IRNA was the first to report the capture of Saddam.

The spin they're putting on the story can be set aside--i.e., that we captured UBL 'long ago' and that he's being held as a propaganda stunt for the November elections. IRNA is an official state agency backed by the best intelligence service in the region, though. If they've learned of UBL's capture, they might be trying to "get out ahead" of the story by putting up false rumors of evil US/Bush motives.

It's also possible that they're wrong, of course, or spreading disinformation. This is a particularly explosive kind of disinformation for that region, though. I'd put the chances of them having information that makes them believe the capture to be true at better than 1 in 2. The odds of it being correct information are longer, but Iranian intelligence is very good within their region.

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