Iran has given senior members of al-Qaida safe haven since they fled from U.S.-led forces during the invasion of Afghanistan more than a decade ago. But the Iranians and al-Qaida do not like or trust each other, in large part because al-Qaida is made up of Sunni Muslims while Iran is predominantly Shia.
Documents obtained from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound after he was killed in 2011 revealed the depths of that mistrust, as well as the ideological differences between the two unlikely allies.
“The Iranians are not to be trusted,” bin Laden wrote in a May 2010 email.
Iran has also recently expelled several senior al-Qaida members, including bin Laden’s son-in-law, because of tensions over the war in Syria.
Al-Qaida has been supporting Sunni fundamentalist rebels in Syria, while the Iranian government is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Former Canadian ambassador to Iran John Mundy described the allegations of a link between the alleged terror plot with al-Qaida operatives in Iran as “puzzling.”
He said when he was in the country in 2007, Iran was “not allowing al-Qaida to operate in any significant way,” and that the two sides were “natural antagonists.”
“If it turns out al-Qaida is now able to operate from an Iranian base (to strike western targets), that would be very new,” Mundy said. “That’s something new and it has implications for us and the United States.
“We have to wait for more information on this.”
Still, U.S. officials warned just last month that Iran hasn’t stopped al-Qaida from operating within its borders.
“We believe that Iran continues to allow al-Qaida to operate a network that moves al-Qaida money and fighters through Iran to support al-Qaida activities in South Asia,” David S. Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the Washington Post last month.
Despite this, Scott Stewart, a former U.S. State Department special agent, said any linkages between al-Qaida, Iran and a Canadian terror plot would be highly unusual. Raising even more doubts for him was that the flag displayed on the LinkedIn page of one of the alleged plotters, Chiheb Esseghaier, is in fact used by al-Qaida in Iraq.
“That’s completely different from al-Qaida in Iran,” Stewart said, “which isn’t really a thing.”
Stewart said one thing to watch will be what the RCMP meant when they said the alleged plotters had received “support” from al-Qaida in Iran.
Fen Hampson, director of the Waterloo, Ont.-based Centre for International Governance Innovation’s global security program, said the links were “somewhat surprising.
“Obviously there needs to be closer scrutiny of the intelligence that is coming out of it.”
The RCMP did not provide further information Monday.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Lee Berthiaume
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