WorldNetDaily: Iran supporting al-Qaida terror: " 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Iran is covertly supporting al-Qaida-aligned terrorists in Iraq, not just anti-American Shiite insurgents, U.S. defense and intelligence sources say with certainty.
The acknowledgment of the long-held suspicion as certainty raises the stakes in Iraq and the Persian Gulf as President Bush begins his second term and Iran, with its nuclear aspirations, moves to the front burner as an international crisis in the making.
According to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been observed moving supplies and new recruits from Iran to Iraq, say the sources. While it has long been known Iran was backing the uprising led by Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Shiite region of Iraq, the Iranian ties to Sunni Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader who has pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, has not been certain...........
Links between Iran and al-Qaida are nothing new, however, the fact that the connections are now being taken seriously by U.S. senior officials who recognize the impact they are having on the ground in Iraq is explosive.
Back in June, former CIA analyst Douglas MacEachin, a member of the 9-11 commission staff, said Iran and its terrorist group ally Hezbollah were linked to the al-Qaida terrorist group.
Other U.S. intelligence officials said there is also evidence Iran is linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the officials, two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who were aboard the aircraft that hit the Pentagon, had stayed at the Iranian ambassador's residence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, before entering the United States in January 2001.
MacEachin disclosed that the Iran-al-Qaida ties were revealed in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers residence complex that housed U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia. The bombing killed 19 Americans.
U.S. intelligence agencies mistakenly assumed then that, since a Shiite group was involved, rival Sunnis were not, he said. That's a mistake senior defense and intelligence officials are no longer making.
Iran's links with al-Qaida go back to at least 1995 when an Egyptian members of bin Laden's group, Mustafa Hamid, visited Tehran. He is believed to have met with representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to discuss cooperation – cooperation that now appears to be a matter of fact.
Between the middle of 1996 and the end of 1998, 10 percent of all of bin Laden's outgoing satellite phone calls were to Iran, say U.S. sources.
In October 2000, Ali Muhammad, in testimony before the Southern District for New York federal court, described setting up meetings in the early 1990s between bin Laden and Imad Mughniyeh of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
Bin Laden's No. 2 in al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the long-time leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, which had extensive ties to Iran. Al-Zawahiri traveled frequently to Iran in the 1990s, and he is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks. "
Iran is covertly supporting al-Qaida-aligned terrorists in Iraq, not just anti-American Shiite insurgents, U.S. defense and intelligence sources say with certainty.
The acknowledgment of the long-held suspicion as certainty raises the stakes in Iraq and the Persian Gulf as President Bush begins his second term and Iran, with its nuclear aspirations, moves to the front burner as an international crisis in the making.
According to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been observed moving supplies and new recruits from Iran to Iraq, say the sources. While it has long been known Iran was backing the uprising led by Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Shiite region of Iraq, the Iranian ties to Sunni Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader who has pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, has not been certain...........
Links between Iran and al-Qaida are nothing new, however, the fact that the connections are now being taken seriously by U.S. senior officials who recognize the impact they are having on the ground in Iraq is explosive.
Back in June, former CIA analyst Douglas MacEachin, a member of the 9-11 commission staff, said Iran and its terrorist group ally Hezbollah were linked to the al-Qaida terrorist group.
Other U.S. intelligence officials said there is also evidence Iran is linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the officials, two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who were aboard the aircraft that hit the Pentagon, had stayed at the Iranian ambassador's residence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, before entering the United States in January 2001.
MacEachin disclosed that the Iran-al-Qaida ties were revealed in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers residence complex that housed U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia. The bombing killed 19 Americans.
U.S. intelligence agencies mistakenly assumed then that, since a Shiite group was involved, rival Sunnis were not, he said. That's a mistake senior defense and intelligence officials are no longer making.
Iran's links with al-Qaida go back to at least 1995 when an Egyptian members of bin Laden's group, Mustafa Hamid, visited Tehran. He is believed to have met with representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to discuss cooperation – cooperation that now appears to be a matter of fact.
Between the middle of 1996 and the end of 1998, 10 percent of all of bin Laden's outgoing satellite phone calls were to Iran, say U.S. sources.
In October 2000, Ali Muhammad, in testimony before the Southern District for New York federal court, described setting up meetings in the early 1990s between bin Laden and Imad Mughniyeh of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
Bin Laden's No. 2 in al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the long-time leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, which had extensive ties to Iran. Al-Zawahiri traveled frequently to Iran in the 1990s, and he is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks. "
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