Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Sunni Islamist websites claim Iran - Al Qaeda link
Insurgency, Iran
In early October 2006, Sunni Islamist websites affiliated with the jihad groups in Iraq posted what they claimed was a top-secret Iranian document. The document, dated May 2001, indicates contacts between top Al-Qaeda figures and the highest echelons of the Iranian intelligence apparatus, which is part of the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Evidence of Iran/Al-Qaeda cooperation had already been allegedly exposed in 2003 by the daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and by Voice of America in interviews with an officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hamid Reza Zakeri, who defected to the West. The publication of the document at this time may be part of the mounting tension between Sunni Islamists and Shi'ites in Iraq.
The document posted on Sunni websites is signed by the head of Khamenei's intelligence apparatus, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri. It includes statements by Khamenei regarding the importance of the Iranian and Muslim struggle against the U.S. and Israel, which "constitutes the primary goal" of the Iranian regime. It also mentions the need to tighten Iran's cooperation with "the fighters of Al-Qaeda and Hizbullah," but warns that utmost caution must be taken in maintaining ties with Al-Qaeda, since such ties, if revealed, could have "irreversible negative consequences" for Iran. The document further states that, on Khamenei's orders, all cooperation with Al-Qaeda will be overseen by his office and should be carried out only through Hizbullah Operations Officer 'Imad Mughniyah and Bin Laden's deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
