Bin Laden’s files show Iran had al-Qaida ties
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The CIA’s release — of documents seized during the 2011 raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden appears to bolster U.S. claims that Iran supported the extremist network leading up to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
U.S. intelligence officials and prosecutors have long said Iran formed loose ties to the terror organization from 1991 on, something noted in a 19-page al-Qaida report in Arabic that was included in the release of some 47,000 other documents by the CIA.
For its part, Iran has long denied any involvementwith al-Qaida. However, the report included in the CIA document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Iran’s arch-rival Saudi Arabia, could look across theMuslimworld’s religious divide to partner with the Mideast’s Shiite power to target his ultimate enemy, the United States.
“Anyone who wants to strikeAmerica, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric,” the report reads.
The report was released by the Long War Journal, a publication backed by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is a think tank fiercely critical of Iran and skeptical of its nuclear deal withworld powers. The CIA gave the Long War Journal early access to the material.
The material also included never-before-seen video of bin Laden’s sonHamza, who may be groomedto take over al-Qaida, getting married. It offers the first public look at Hamza bin Laden as an adult. Until now, the public has only seen childhood pictures of him.
The releasecomes as President Donald Trump has refused to recertify Iran’s nucleardeal withworldpowers and faces domestic pressure at home over investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The 19- page report included in the CIA release was available onlineWednesday. The CIA later issued a warning about the files on its website, saying that since the material “was seized from a terrorist organization ... there is no absolute guarantee that all malware has been removed.” TheCIAthen took down the files entirely early Thursday, saying theywere “temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue.”
“We areworking to make the material available again as soon as possible,” the CIA said.
The unsigned 19-page report is dated in the Islamic calendar year 1428 — equivalent to 2007 — and offers what appears to be a history of al-Qaida’s relationship with Iran. It says Iran offered al-Qaida fighters “money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training inHezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia.”
This coincides with an account offered by the U.S. government’s 9/11 Commission, which said Iranian officials met with al-Qaida leaders in Sudan in either 1991 or early 1992. The commission said al-Qaida militants later received training inLebanon fromthe Shiite militant groupHezbollah, which Iran backs to this day.
U.S. prosecutors also said al-Qaida had the backing of Iran and Hezbollah in their 1998 indictment of binLaden following the al-Qaida truck bombings of theU.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.
Al-Qaida’s apparent siding with Iran may seem surprising today, given the enmity Sunni extremists like those of the Islamic State group have for Shiites.
But bin Laden had run out of options by 1991 — the one-time fighter against the Soviets in Afghanistan had fallen out with Saudi Arabia over his opposition to the ultra conservative kingdom hosting U.S. troops during the Gulf War. Meanwhile, Iran had become increasingly nervous about America’s growing military expansion in the Mideast.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on NewYork’sWorld Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, Iran would allow al-Qaida militants to pass through its borders without receiving stamps in their passports or with visas gotten ahead of time at its consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.
On Thursday, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, dismissed the CIA documents as “a project against Tehran.”