Al Qaeda released an article in its English newsletter Inspire calling Iran's President Ahmedinijad a conspiracy theorist, and that he should stop blaming the US for 9/11.
This is more than just boasting by Al-Qaeda. It's not simply that they want the credit for the attack on the WTC, but specifically, they want to be distanced from the US. Inadvertently, Ahmedinijad is claiming that Al-Qaeda are collaborators with the US, rather than sworn enemies. If the US was involved in a coordinated way, it would undermine Al-Qaeda's anti-US credibility.
Even if Ahmedinijad claims the US wasn't coordinating actively with Al-Qaeda, but simply knew about it beforehand and prepped for the attack, it would undermine Al-Qaeda's credibility in effective attacks. If 9/11's mastery was really at the hands of the US, then Al-Qaeda has summarily failed to attack the US on its soil since 1993 (which was ineffectual at best).
The split is a sign that different Islamist groups, while anti-American, are far from being able to unite in the cause. It's a sign that US foreign policy--to keep the Middle East broken up and fractured--is working.
3 comments:
"To keep the Middle East broken up and fractured..."
Do you mean "to keep our enemies in the Middle East broken up..." ?
Or is it actually our strategy to promote societal division? I should think and hope it isn't, as that seems like it would mean we'll continue to have to keep watch on it.
That should be Sunni.Also, I'll note that Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group which has the re-establishment of the caliphate as a goal, should not be expected to be chummy with Iran.
In fact, according to Ambassador James F. Dobbins, Former Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Representative to the Afghan opposition in the wake of September 11, 2001
Iran financially supported our invasion of Afghanistan. This is actually pretty mundane: they just kept paying the Northern Alliance fighters whom they'd been supporting in pre-9/11 Afghan civil war.
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