Iran relationship with al-Qaeda revealed in newly-released trove of Bin Laden documents

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Iran relationship with al-Qaeda revealed in newly-released trove of Bin Laden documents


Iran relationship with al-Qaeda revealed in newly-released trove of Bin Laden documents

A file photograph dated 1998 showing Saudi-born billionaire Osama Bin Laden smiling as he sits in a cave in the Jalalabad region of Afghanistan. Credit: EPA
A newly released trove of documents recovered from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound have revealed “secret dealings” between Iran and al-Qaeda.

Nearly half a million files found on the computer seized in the May 2, 2011, US raid on the al-Qaeda founder's hideout in Abbottabad were released by the CIA yesterday.

A never-before-seen 19-page document purportedly written by a senior member of al-Qaeda details an arrangement between Iran and members of the group to strike American interests in "Saudi Arabia and the Gulf."

In exchange, Shia Iran offered Sunni militants "money, arms” and “training in Hizbollah camps in Lebanon."

Iranian intelligence facilitated the travel of some operatives with visas, while sheltering others.

The author of the file, described as "well-connected," explains that al-Qaeda's forces violated the terms of the agreement of the deal, however, resulting in several men being detained.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House Credit: AP
Iranian connections to Hizballah and Palestinian militant groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are well-documented, but its ties to al-Qaeda have until now been shrouded in secrecy.

The timing of the release comes as US President Donald Trump is trying to decertify a bilateral deal agreed with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation programme, which was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and one which he has described as the “worst deal ever made”.

Mr Trump has been keen to portray Tehran as America’s greatest threat and will no doubt seize upon the documents as proof of the Islamic republic’s support for terrorism in the region.

Speaking at a national security seminar organised by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington DC last month about the release of the documents, Mike Pompeo, CIA director, said al-Qaeda and Iran have always built "secret and open" ties.

Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo arrives for a closed briefing before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. Credit: Reuters
Mr Pompeo attributed the cooperation between the two parties to the fact that they view the West as a common enemy, referring to an "ideological consensus" of their cooperation against the West.

He added that the two sides did not fight against each other because they considered the West a greater threat to them.

Mr Pompeo stressed that CIA is still watching these relations, especially with the complexity of the situation in Syria, noting that US intelligence is tracking the terrorist organisations' loss of territories in Syria and Ira.

The documents also contained a log of bin Laden’s video collection, which included pornographic material, several Hollywood movies and three documentaries about himself.

Two newly-released videos also show scenes from the wedding of bin Laden’s son Hamza, the first picture of the heir apparent as an adult.





The images are not current, but they are much more recent than the photo al-Qaeda is willing to distribute.

According to Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, scholars from the foundation who were allowed to study the trove before it was made public, it provides new insights.

“The Abbottabad repository confirms that bin Laden was anything but retired when US forces knocked down his door. He was not a mere figurehead,” they write in the Long War Journal.

“During the final months of his life, Osama bin Laden was communicating with subordinates around the globe. Recovered memos discuss the various committees and lieutenants who helped bin Laden manage his sprawling empire of terror.”

With 470,000 files released in one trance, it will likely take weeks for journalists, academics, and other researchers to shift through the documents in the trove and contextualise their significance.

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

Let me find out Osama was a hijab porn connoisseur.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Bin Laden files back up US claims on Iran ties to al-Qaida

Bin Laden files back up US claims on Iran ties to al-Qaida
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — 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 starting in 1991, 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 involvement with al-Qaida, and its foreign minister disparaged the documents in a tweet late Thursday: “A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/ selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can’t whitewash role of US allies in 9/11.”

The report included in the CIA document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Iran’s archrival Saudi Arabia, could look across the Muslim world’s religious divide to partner with the Mideast’s Shiite power to target his ultimate enemy, the United States.

“Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric,” the report reads.

Never-before-seen video of Osama bin Laden's son and potential successor, Hamza Bin Laden, was released Wednesday by the CIA in a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaida leader. 470,000 files were released. (Nov. 2)

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Never-before-seen video of Osama bin Laden’s son and potential successor, Hamza Bin Laden, was released Wednesday by the CIA in a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaida leader. 470,000 files were released. (Nov. 2)

The Associated Press examined a copy of the report released by the Long War Journal, a publication backed by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank fiercely critical of Iran and skeptical of its nuclear deal with world 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 son Hamza, who may be groomed to 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 release comes as President Donald Trump has refused to recertify Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers 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 online Wednesday. 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.” The CIA then took down the files entirely early Thursday, saying they were “temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue.”

“We are working 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 — 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 in Hezbollah 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 in Lebanon from the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, 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 bin Laden following the al-Qaida truck bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

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 ultraconservative kingdom hosting U.S. troops during the Gulf War. Meanwhile, Iran had become increasingly nervous about America’s growing military expansion in the Mideast.

“The relationship between al-Qaida and Iran demonstrated that the Sunni-Shiite divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations,” the 9/11 Commission report would later say.

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World 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, according to the 19-page report. That helped the organization’s Saudi members avoid suspicion. They also had contact with Iranian intelligence agents, according to the report.

This also matches with U.S. knowledge. Eight of the 10 so-called “muscle” hijackers on Sept. 11 — those who kept passengers under control on the hijacked flights — passed through Iran before arriving in the United States, according to the 9/11 Commission.

However, the commission “found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.”

For its part, Iran has denied having any relationship with al-Qaida since the 1998 attacks on the embassies. Iran quietly offered the U.S. assistance after the Sept. 11 attacks, though relations would sour following President George W. Bush naming it to his “axis of evil” in 2002.

On Thursday, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, dismissed the CIA documents as “a project against Tehran.”

The 19-page report describes Iranians later putting al-Qaida leaders and members under house arrest sometime after the Sept. 11 attacks. It mentions the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, saying it put increasing pressure on Iran, especially with the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq.

“They decided to keep our brothers as a card,” the report said.

That would come true in in 2015 as Iran reportedly exchanged some al-Qaida leaders for one of its diplomats held in Yemen by the terror group’s local branch. While Yemen described it as a captive exchange, Tehran instead called it a “difficult and complicated” special operation to secure the Iranian diplomat’s freedom from the “hands of terrorists.”

“The repercussions ... of the Sept. 11 attacks were undoubtedly very large and perhaps above (our) imagination,” the al-Qaida report said.

___

Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran contributred to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Iran’s secret funding for al-Qaeda in exchange for attacks on U.S. targets exposed in Bin Laden files

Iran’s Secret Funding For al-Qaeda In Exchange For Attacks On U.S. Targets Exposed in Bin Laden Files
By Callum Paton On Thursday, November 2, 2017 - 08:14

Saudi-born terror mastermind Osama bin Laden is seen in this video footage recorded at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan in 2001; files from his Pakistan compound have revealed al-Qaeda's ties with Iran. Photo: AFP/Getty Images
Iranian offers of secret funding, arms and training to al-Qaeda have been laid bare in a 19-page document declassified by the C.I.A. that shows how Tehran provided extensive support for the terror group in an effort to weaken the United States.

The previously unseen document, released with 470,000 files recovered in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in May 2011, gives an assessment of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran, according to a senior jihadist in the group.

Related: Iran Could Create Uranium for Nuclear Weapons in Days if Deal With U.S. Is Broken

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Translations by the Long War Journal, which chronicles the U.S. war on terror, have shown how Iran offered the “Saudi brothers” in al-Qaeda “everything they needed” if they were to carry out strikes on U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. This aid extended to “money, arms” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon,” the documents explain.

In other instances it can be seen that Iran provided logistical assistance to al-Qaeda, facilitating travel for some operatives and providing safe houses for others. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Tehran provided safe-haven for prominent ideologue Abu Hafs al-Mauritani and his followers in Iran.

Relations were often fractious between the Sunni al-Qaeda and Shiite Iran, even if both recognized they were never in open war that their “interests intersect” on the issue of their shared classification as an “enemy of America.”

At one point Al-Qaeda contacted Ayatollah Khamenei directly, demanding the release of prisoners in Iranian custody. Other files, previously released, have shown how Bin Laden cautioned being overly antagonistic towards Iran which he personally described as al-Qaeda’s “main artery for funds, personnel and communication.”

The Abbotabad files formed part of the U.S. strategy for targeting al-Qaeda’s source of wealth and operational aid coming from Iran.

Speaking last month at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo said al-Qaeda and Iran had built complex ties.“It’s an open secret and not classified information that there have been relationships, there are connections,” he said. “There have been times the Iranians have worked alongside al-Qaeda,” the C.I.A. director added.

Pompeo said the relationships between al-Qaeda and Iran, whose origins are outlined in the documents such as those released by the C.I.A., continue be placed under close surveillance especially in Syria where the two sides are directly opposed.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Once again, I said this A LONG time ago and people laughed Iran helped 9/11, using the Saudis as proxies. Look at the facts. - US Treasury agrees

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

CIA’s Bin Laden Files Shed New Light on Qaeda-Iran Ties
Militant group shared a pragmatic alliance that emerged out of shared hatred of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, a newly released document shows.
Margherita Stancati in Beirut and
Nov. 2, 2017 5:57 p.m. ET

After the U.S. toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, members of al Qaeda, which was based there, scrambled to escape. Most of them crossed the border into Pakistan. But others moved to Iran, an al Qaeda official who appeared to be a senior member of the militant group wrote in a lengthy 2007 account in one of the documents.

Both sides were willing to overlook profound ideological and religious differences to combat common enemies. The terror group practices an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam that considers Shiite Islam—Iran’s state religion—a rejection of the true faith.

“In my experience, the Iranian regime is the best example…of pragmatism in politics,” the al Qaeda official wrote in the document. “Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support them and help them with money and arms and all that is required as long as they are not directly and clearly implicated.”

An official at Iran’s United Nations mission didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The release comes as President Donald Trump pursues a hard line on Iran, refusing last month to certify that Tehran was complying with a nuclear deal it reached in 2015 with six world powers including the U.S. The revelation of deeper ties between Iran and al Qaeda than many had believed could further embolden American proponents of tough new sanctions on Iran.

Many of the harshest international sanctions against the country were removed under the nuclear deal, in exchange for Iran’s agreement to scale back its disputed nuclear program. A U.N. monitoring body has repeatedly certified Iran’s compliance with the accord.

“These documents reveal the complexities of al Qaeda’s relationship with Iran in much greater detail than ever before,” said Bruce Riedel, a former career CIA official who is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Inside Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abottabad, Pakistan, where the al Qaeda militant was killed during a raid by U.S. special forces ordered by President Barack Obama. The CIA this week released new documents recovered in the raid. Photo: Getty Images

The U.S. placed sanctions on three senior al Qaeda figures based in Iran last year. “There is every reason to believe that the two remain in contact today, working collaboratively when it suits mutual interests,” Mr. Riedel added.

Strategic links between Iran and al Qaeda stretch back decades. But nearly 470,000 files released Wednesday by the Central Intelligence Agency reveal the contours of a relationship that was both close but at times fraught.

Iran welcomed al Qaeda fighters as they fled Afghanistan who were mostly based in Zahedan, a city close to the Afghan border. Tehran offered the fighters shelter, money and weapons as well as training in camps run by its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. The author said he didn’t know whether any al Qaeda fighters ultimately ended up in Hezbollah training camps. A priority for Iran, according to the author, was to encourage the jihadists to target the U.S., particularly in Saudi Arabia.

“They offered some of our Saudi brothers… money and arms and everything they needed,” the al Qaeda official wrote. “They offered them training in the Hezbollah camps in Lebanon in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi and the Gulf.”

The Iranians gave them strict instructions to keep a low profile, banning them from using phones or gathering in groups, according to the document. But the jihadists broke those rules, angering their Iranian hosts and leading to an unraveling of the relationship.

Iranian authorities rounded up the al Qaeda fighters and told them that the Americans recorded many of their calls and accused Iran of harboring terrorists, the document’s author said.

After that, Iran tightly restricted the movement of the Qaeda fighters, imprisoning some of them and forcing others to leave. Iranian authorities sometimes provided them with forged passports to travel, according to the document.

Allegations that Iran and Hezbollah helped train al Qaeda militants aren’t new. In the early 1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, al Qaeda and Iran informally agreed to cooperate on actions against Israel and the U.S. Al Qaeda operatives subsequently traveled to Iran and Lebanon for training, according to the final report of the 9/11 commission, a government body set up to investigate the circumstances behind the attacks.

After bin Laden relocated to Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the assistance continued, the commission found. Iran trained al Qaeda operatives to forge and alter passports and other documents, allowing them to travel freely around the region and to the U.S., its report said. When they transited through Iran, Iranian border officials didn’t put stamps in their passports.

Bin Laden and many al Qaeda members, including the majority of the 9/11 hijackers, were Saudi citizens. Disrupting the partnership between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. has long been a focus of al Qaeda and other extremist groups such as Islamic State. These groups resent Western influence in the kingdom, the home of Islam’s two holiest sites.

— Nazih Osseiran in Beirut contributed to this article.

Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com and Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

That does it. We should go to war with Iran.

And Saudi Arabia.

 

[Techniec]

Shocking development

Roving band of Islamic mercenaries are used by global and regional powers to advance their interests covertly

 

[hashmander]

so iran got them to hit saudi in the late 90's. big whoop. only warmongers like you and the trump admin care about this foolishness today.

declare war on them and saudi arabia and sanction both of them and tear up the deal. release them thangs on both and solve all your problems.

it'll be fun to watch how all this blows up in y'all face though, like everything else neocons touch.

 

[FAH1223]

so iran got them to hit saudi in the late 90's. big whoop. only warmongers like you and the trump admin care about this foolishness today.

declare war on them and saudi arabia and sanction both of them and tear up the deal. release them thangs on both and solve all your problems.

it'll be fun to watch how all this blow up in y'all face though, like everything else neocons touch.

 

[hashmander]

see Al Qaeda TODAY is good, but they were bad YESTERDAY.
YESTERDAY iran was their friend, TODAY iran is their enemy, only the actions of yesterday matter so TEAR UP THAT DEAL. we must avenge the 90's on behalf of our loyal ally saudi arabia because they had nothing to do with 9/11 and we must punish the real rogues like iran who produced all those terrorists.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Shocking development

Roving band of Islamic mercenaries are used by global and regional powers to advance their interests covertly

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

see Al Qaeda TODAY is good, but they were bad YESTERDAY.
YESTERDAY iran was their friend, TODAY iran is their enemy, only the actions of yesterday matter so TEAR UP THAT DEAL. we must avenge the 90's on behalf of our loyal ally saudi arabia because they had nothing to do with 9/11 and we must punish the real rogues like iran who produced all those terrorists.

Or, you all ignored 30 years of people telling you Iran was bad and you hate any facts that challenge your rock solid assertions that only tells you American is bad.

Whats wrong?

are you all that scared by the reality?

I've BEEN telling you Iran was full of shyt.

And I've BEEN telling you that was known BEFORE and SINCE 9/11 that Iran was a bad actor.

Yall refused to acknowledge it then or now....now you're trying to pin this on the iran deal.

fukk that. Iran was helping 9/11 hijackers, does terrorism around the world (see Argentina and Washington D.C.) and is just as much of a problem in the international community as anyone else.