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| Terror Networks |
| EDITORIAL: Iran and Al Qaeda today |
| 2007-02-12 |
| Iran has caught two Al Qaeda terrorists who were making their way from Pakistan, through Afghanistan and Iran, to Iraq, where Al Qaeda is fighting a bloody sectarian war against the Shia. The two were caught on a very familiar route used by Al Qaeda men to go to the Caucasus and Iraq to make things tough for the United States. Of late, however, Iran has been catching the Al Qaeda terrorists and turning them over to the US allies even though not long ago it had sheltered Osama bin Laden’s son and the leader of Al Qaeda’s Iraq jihad, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Ironically, Washington is making ready to accuse Iran of collaborating with Al Qaeda. In fact some observers think that President Bush might be about to order an air attack on Iran. According to them, Vice President Dick Cheney and some conservative think-tanks are in favour of punishing Iran from the US military build-up in the Gulf, while the Defence and State Departments are opposed to any such action. While Iran’s president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and the American president George W Bush send verbal lightening bolts at each other, the two countries are also watching their interests coalesce in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Pakistan, however, ruling politicians are telling the Karzai government and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces in Afghanistan to ‘consult’ with the old warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to get rid of the Taliban curse. Iran has changed tack on Al Qaeda because it has been punished for its past policy of helping its terrorists pass through for Kurdistan in Iraq. The Iranians must have regretted especially their act of letting Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, then Al Qaeda chief in Herat in Afghanistan, use Iranian territory for his adventures. Zarqawi turned the Islamic jihad into a Sunni jihad, which now has to be fought against the Shia and Iran. In 2006 he destroyed the Askari shrine in Samarra containing the remains of two Shia imams and one structure dedicated to Imam Mahdi. Zarqawi was killed by the Americans the same year near Baghdad, as an unintended gesture to Iran. Zarqawi sat at the Islam Qila crossroads giving access to Turkey through Iran, on the one hand, and to Chechnya through Turkmenistan, on the other. He was closely watched by the Iranians although there was agreement between Iran and Al Qaeda on the right of passage for the mujahideen. Zarqawi knew that the Iranians were financing the Shia militias against the Taliban. Osama bin Laden was impressed with Zarqawi’s efforts at training jihadists in explosives and chemicals (there was even a rumour that Al Qaeda’s nuclear material was also stored in Herat) and therefore did not hesitate to give him money for his plan to carry out terrorists attacks in Israel in 2000. Zarqawi landed first in Kurdistan and promptly divided the leadership there. He also took advantage of the Saudi funds injected into Kurdistan for Salafism although that was anathema to Osama bin Laden. Far from attacking Israel he thought of leading the Sunnis of Iraq against the Shia and Iran. He pushed the Kurdish extremist leader Mullah Krekar — nurtured by Pakistan as a teacher at its Islamic University in Islamabad — to run away and seek asylum in Norway. Zarqawi them moved to the Anbar province and began supporting the sectarian writers funded by Saudi Arabia and posting intensely ant-Shia harangues on his websites. Osama and Al Zawahiri at first disapproved of Zarqawi’s new policy but were defeated by the funds Zarqawi was able to attract from Europe for his programme. (The expat funding from Europe was manifestly anti-American but subliminally ant-Shia.) In December 2006 Osama bin Laden finally gave in and agreed to change Al Qaeda’s policy. Al Qaeda is now a sectarian outfit and jihad is turned against Iran. It is because of this change that Iran has acted against Al Qaeda men passing through its territory. For the information of Senator Mushahid Hussain in Pakistan, Iran may no longer look kindly at Hekmatyar who once hid there when his total lack of direction in policy had exhausted his options in Afghanistan. Pakistan is shooting itself in the foot backing the Taliban. In Washington, policy-makers must wake up to the fact that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are America’s major enemy in the region and not Iran. Pakistan’s own interest too lies with Iran, which will be its only source of energy in the coming years. America is already in the same bed with Iran on its backing to the Northern Alliance and its non-Pushtun components. Ironically it may be the Northern Alliance that might be willing to recognise the Durand Line, not Hekmatyar or the Pushtuns of Afghanistan. * |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Iran is more urgent (those silly nuclear bombs they're working on), but the Pakistan/Saudi axis will have to be dealt with in order to win the war. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-12 10:53 |
| #1 Good read. Who is the bigger danger Pakistan with Saudi Funding or Iran and Hezbollah/Syria???? In The UK we see the Pakistan threat as more urgent!!!! |
| Posted by: Ebbolump Glomotle9608 2007-02-12 07:07 |