| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Mugniyah, Iran & 9/11 |
| 2008-02-16 |
| Andy McCarthy: Tom Joscelyn's Weekly Standard cover story is the definitive account of the recently assassinated Imad Mugniyah's pivotal role in the confederation of Hezbollah, Iran and al Qaeda. The most intriguing part is the last section, which deals with the likely contribution of Iran to the 9/11 attacks and our government's stubborn refusal to investigate it — reminiscent, I would note, of our government's refusal for years to acknowledge Iran's coordination of the Khobar Towers bombing (now known to have been carried out by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and, probably, al Qaeda). snip Most accounts have ignored Mugniyah's ties to al Qaeda. Others have denied that collusion between the Shiite Mugniyah and the Sunni bin Laden was possible. One Associated Press account described Mugniyah as "a Shiite Muslim not known to be connected to the Sunni al Qaeda." James Risen of the New York Times mentioned in passing that "there is evidence of contacts between [Mugniyah and bin Laden]," including "at least one meeting in the 1990s, possibly to discuss a terrorist relationship." If it were left to the mainstream media, then, Mugniyah's role in the history of al Qaeda's terror would be only a vague matter for speculation. A close reading of the 9/11 Commission Report, however, along with legal documents produced by the Clinton administration, the trial testimony of two known al Qaeda terrorists, and a variety of other sources, tells a different story. There is a lengthy history of collaboration between Mugniyah and al Qaeda. And there remain disturbing questions about his possible involvement in the attacks of September 11. Imad Mugniyah's relationship with Osama bin Laden began in the early 1990s, when al Qaeda's CEO was living in Sudan. Bin Laden's benefactor at the time was a charismatic Sunni Islamist ideologue named Hassan al- Turabi. In 1989, Turabi, along with General Omar al-Bashir, now president of Sudan, orchestrated a coup in which Sudan's regime was overthrown. In its place, Bashir and Turabi installed their own National Islamic Front (NIF) party. From the first, the NIF had radical designs for the world. The differences between Sunnis and Shiites were not insurmountable in Turabi's eyes; on multiple occasions he dismissed the importance of any theological disagreements. Instead, Turabi envisioned a grand, Manichean clash of civilizations in which the Muslim world stood united against its common Western foes, especially America. In a few short years, Turabi's Sudan became a hub for international terrorists of all stripes. A who's who of terrorists set up shop. And Turabi welcomed the leading state sponsors of terrorism as well. Scores of Iraqi and Iranian intelligence officers relocated to Sudan, and Turabi made sure they mingled with his other imported terrorists. As George Tenet would note in his autobiography, At the Center of the Storm, Turabi "reportedly served as a conduit for Bin Laden between Iraq and Iran." With Turabi's help, bin Laden began meeting with senior Iranian and Hezbollah officials. Years later, during the trial in New York of those responsible for al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, former al Qaeda operative Jamal al Fadl described one such meeting. In an exchange with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on February 6, 2001, al Fadl explained that the Iranians talked about how "we have to come together and we have to forget the problem between each other and each one he should respect the other because our enemy is one and because there is no reason to fight each other." Fitzgerald followed up, "Who did they describe the enemy as being?" Fadl replied, "They say westerns [sic]." Bin Laden agreed with the Iranian assessment that the enemies of the West should come together. Years after the meeting described by al Fadl, the Clinton administration recognized that an alliance between Iran, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda had blossomed in Sudan. In its 1998 indictment of al Qaeda, Clinton administration prosecutors charged that al Qaeda had forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah, for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. At the heart of this "alliance" was the personal relationship between Mugniyah and bin Laden. As we shall see in a moment, we have the testimony of a top al Qaeda operative that the two men conferred in Sudan in the early 1990s. And there is evidence of their collaboration throughout the decade. Keep reading at site, outstanding history lesson of connecting the dots. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #1 Explain to me again how the Saudis are our allies? |
| Posted by: doc 2008-02-16 19:01 |