Once more, Iran's collusion with al-Qaeda has come to the fore after a United Nations (UN) report named Saif al-Adel, a high-ranking al-Qaeda official believed to be located in Iran, as the operating and uncontested leader of the group.
After al-Qaeda's former leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike last July in Afghanistan, the group never recognised his death, nor did it officially name a successor.
Al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer and close affiliate of Osama bin Laden with a $10 million bounty on his head, is not officially recognised as the leader, according to the United Nations (UN).
Most UN member states suspected that a "key factor" behind al-Qaeda's silence is the continued presence of al-Adel in largely Shia Iran, the UN report reads.
"This raised difficult theological and operational questions" for al-Qaeda, which has long viewed Shia Muslims as apostates, The Washington Post reported.
"Our assessment aligns with that of the UN -- that al-Qaeda's new de facto leader Saif al-Adel is based in Iran," a US State Department spokesperson said on February 15.
The UN report said that the predominant view of member states is that al-Adel is now the group's leader, "representing continuity for now".
Unsurprisingly, the office of the Islamic Republic's UN representative has denied al-Adel's presence in Iran.
The report has stated that another reason al-Qaeda has not formally declared al-Adel as its leader is out of sensitivity to the concerns of Afghan officials, who have not acknowledged that al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul last year.
"His location raises questions that have a bearing on al-Qaeda's ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges from ISIS ['Islamic State of Iraq and Syria']," the UN report noted.
Why Shia Iran?
After joining the Islamic Jihad in Egypt in the 1980s, al-Adel was arrested and then released, ending up in Afghanistan and joining al-Qaeda.
According to the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), he was arrested in Iran in 2003 and freed in 2015 in a prisoner exchange. He was still suspected of being in Iran in 2018 as one of al-Zawahiri's key deputies.
"Saif is one of the most experienced professional soldiers in the worldwide jihadi movement, and his body bears the scars of battle," according to a profile of the alleged terror group leader written by counter-terrorism expert Ali Soufan.
"When he acts, he does so with ruthless efficiency," Soufan wrote in a 2021 article for the CTC Sentinel, published by the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US Military Academy.
Al-Adel's apparent continued presence in Iran is a sign of pragmatism, Soufan said.
"Despite the hateful necessity of living under Shia rule, al-Adel's best chance of survival, and therefore of continued effectiveness in the jihad, lay in a return to Iran," he said.
Iran's Shia rulers officially oppose al-Qaeda, yet Iran has been accused repeatedly of co-operating with the network and giving sanctuary to its leaders.
For CEP director Hans-Jakob Schindler, al-Adel "is a liability but also an asset for the Iranian regime".
According to its interests, Tehran could decide to hand him over to the United States, or allow him to attack the West.
Of Iran's ties with al-Qaeda in 2017, then-US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo said, "There have been relationships, there are connections. There have been times the Iranians have worked alongside al-Qaeda."
Past assessments by the US Treasury and State departments have repeatedly stated that the Iranian regime allows al-Qaeda to maintain a "core facilitation pipeline" on its soil.
History of harbouring terrorists
The relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran began during the era when bin Laden was the group's leader, according to Nabil Naeem, a founding member of the Islamic Jihad in Egypt who has renounced extremism.
That relationship has continued after bin Laden's death, he told Al-Mashareq in 2018.
In 2020, al-Qaeda's second-in-command Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah -- aka Abu Mohammed al-Masri -- was killed in Tehran by Israeli agents.
Iranian officials reportedly protected him in an upscale suburb of Tehran for years.
Al-Masri, indicted in the United States in connection with charges in the 1998 co-ordinated bombings of its embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, was shot and killed in Tehran in the summer of 2020 by clandestine Israeli operatives on a motorcycle at Washington's behest, The New York Times reported in November of that year.
Al-Masri was one of al-Qaeda's founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organisation after al-Zawahiri.
In Iran, al-Masri mentored Hamza bin Laden (Osama bin Laden's son), who was being groomed to take over the organisation, according to terrorism specialists.
Hamza was killed in 2019 in a counter-terrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
A cache of documents recovered in 2017 from Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, further suggests that the Iranian regime, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has strong ties with al-Qaeda.
The IRGC is alleged to have hosted a large number of al-Qaeda elements on the run from international authorities.
Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the then-commander of the IRGC's elite Quds Force who was killed in Baghdad in January 2020, was "the architect of the relationship between the IRGC and al-Qaeda", according to Naeem.
Before he was killed in Syria in 2008, Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh also "played an important role in training [al-Qaeda] elements, particularly on the methods of booby-trapping and bombing", he added.
Al-Qaeda's relationship with both the IRGC and Iranian intelligence is strong, he said, noting that "the symbolism of the relationship was manifest when Iran hosted the family of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden".
Both sides have been stoking sectarian tensions for years, Naeem said, with "the IRGC portraying itself as protecting the rights of Shia and defending them, and al-Qaeda using the same tactic with the Sunni community".
Iran has consistently denied housing al-Qaeda officials, but with the latest revelations, that party line is becoming harder to believe.
"Iran uses sectarianism as a cudgel when it suits the regime, but is also willing to overlook the Sunni-Shia divide when it suits Iranian interests," Colin P. Clarke, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Soufan Centre, told The New York Times.
There is no doubt about this, because Iran is a country that supports terrorist groups; therefore, keeping the leader of Al-Qaeda or his residence in this country will not be surprising. It is surprising how the head of al-Qaeda reached Iran, because al-Qaeda is religiously separate from Shiites! It is known that al-Qaeda has lost its place in the world! This is good news. Nothing can be done except to fight and kill these people, the weaker these groups become, the less they inflict on the humans.
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An important piece of advice for Afghans to live well in their homeland: If Afghans have plans to live comfortably in their country, starting a war with Iran and Pakistan would be better. If there is any thought that with the start of the war, the life of Afghans would deteriorate, this is not the case. I follow the words of the leader of the poor class of Europe. When he rose against the church authorities, he said, "we have nothing to lose, but what we gain will be gain/freedom." So I wanted to say that the only way for Afghans to get rid of the evil of their neighbors is to start an armed war against them. And if they don't do it, they won't get rid of their neighbors for the rest of their life. Sometimes they send them projects under one name and sometimes under the other name.
ReplyI agree with this statement. Pakistan has implemented various projects under the name of Jihad in Afghanistan for several decades and is still seeking projects from the West under the name of suppressing jihadists. This so-called country built by the Britons once carried out the project of building Mujahideen. Then they implemented the project of fighting Mujahideen with each other. Then they carried out the project of suppressing the Mujahideen. And historical evidence shows that they take money from stupid western politicians and fill their pockets with it every time.
Reply6 Comment
Iran's threat and my opinion: A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran says that the country's army has developed cruise missiles that can shoot at a distance of 1,650 kilometers. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Air Force wing of the IRGC, said in an interview with Iran's state television that the missile was added to the missile arsenal of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This senior Iranian military official once again repeated the threat that Iran wants to take revenge on the United States for killing its senior military officer. He said, "we want to kill the former president of the United States, Donald Trump." The first images of the Paveh cruise missiles were also published on Iranian television. After the killing of Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's Quds Force, in an American airstrike near Baghdad Airport in 2020, Iran responded by firing missiles at military bases in Iraq, where American forces were stationed, and Mr. Hajizadeh said that Iran did not want to kill "incompetent soldiers" in this attack. He added, "God willing, we want to kill Trump and Pompeo (former US Secretary of State) and the military commanders who ordered the killing of Soleimani." ) The above news was about the threat of Iran. I tell Iran that Soleimani reached the fate of his actions. I have nothing to do with Israel and America, but your commander was a murderer of Afghans, Iraqis, and Syrians. God punished him for his evil deeds. If you want to please his soul, if Pakistan wants to
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Israel has been expressing concern about the progress of Iran's nuclear program for a long time. The leak of this report, which tells about the preparation of a possible attack, could be part of a project to force the Western allies to take collective action instead of leaving Israel alone in the confrontation with Iran. According to the Telegraph, the country has warned the United States and France that it will act alone if the international community does not support it. Benjamin Netanyahu said at a national security conference on Tuesday that, "the only thing that has ever stopped rogue states from developing nuclear weapons has been the threat or credible military action," He emphasized, "a necessary and often sufficient condition is valid military action." The longer you wait, the harder it gets. "We have waited so long." After Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from Iran's nuclear deal with the world powers, the Biden administration tried to revive the comprehensive plan of joint action known as JCPOA to contain Tehran's nuclear forces. The negotiations designed to achieve this goal went well until September, and the parties were on the verge of an agreement, but Iranian officials suddenly raised other demands, which, according to Western officials, were outside the scope of the negotiations and led to a deadlock in the talks. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says that "Iran has moved away from the demands of foreign countries and distanced itself from the J
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In a report based on leaked information, Fox News announced that Israel is preparing to attack Iran. The report states that the decision to take possible action against Iran's nuclear facilities was made after secret meetings between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, senior officials of the Ministry of Defense and Israel's intelligence services. Amir Avivi, the prominent Israeli general and the founder of the "Israel Defense Security Council" says in this regard that his country will not allow Iran to become nuclear. In a conversation with Fox News, he stated, "Since we are witnessing the unhindered progress of Iran's military nuclear program with weapons-level enrichment, Israel is also preparing to implement its military option." A local channel in Israel known as "Channel 12" reported in a report without naming the sources it cited that secret meetings were held between the prime minister and Israeli defense and intelligence officials along with the head of the Mossad to discuss a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, "The Times of Israel" responded to this issue by saying that the authorities could have disclosed this news in order to clarify the determination of the country. The tension between Israel and Iran has intensified in the recent weeks after a drone attack on Iranian military facilities. Tehran claims that these "acts of aggression" were designed and prepared by the Israeli government based on the results of preliminary investigations
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