I’m sure the Trump administration wouldn’t dream of ginning up evidence of a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda — would they?
The trove also provides new insight into the often adversarial relationship between al Qaeda and Iran — the Sunni Muslim terror group and the Shiite republic — in the form of a 19-page report described by the Long War Journal as “a senior jihadist’s assessment of the group’s relationship with Iran.”
Two U.S. intelligence officials characterized the document to NBC News as “evidence of Iran’s support of al Qaeda’s war with the United States.”
According to the officials, the document traces the history of the relationship starting with the escape of a group of Al Qaeda officials and their families from Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion in September 2001. Bin Laden dispatched the group of Al Qaeda leaders, known as the Al Qaeda Management Council, to Iran.
At various points in the relationship, the document reveals, Iran offered Al Qaeda help, in the form of “money, arms” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.”
But at other points in the relationship, according to the document, there were angry rifts, leading to forced detention of key Al Qaeda officials.
The files confirm previous reports that Bin Laden wrote Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei demanding the release of family members held in Iranian custody. Bin Laden himself considered plans to counter Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East, which he viewed as pernicious, according to the Long War Journal, an account confirmed by the U.S. officials.
This is a very serious matter.
The Trump administration’s foreign and defense policies, at this time, are a carbon copy of that of Israel.
It’s as if Netanyahu were the president and not Trump.
Given the fact that Trump knows nothing about either foreign policy or defense policy it’s not a very far stretch to think that Israel’s policies in both of those areas are currently being followed by Trump.
For example, today Trump declared that if “the terrorists strike us, we will strike them twice as hard.”
That is right out of the Israeli defense manual.
It is a dangerous and illegal policy to follow.
To say nothing of the fact that it is totally counter-productive in the long run.