by: Rami Dabbas

According to reports, Isis still has as many as 30,000 members almost equally divided between Syria and Iraq. They are supported by al-Qaeda Islamic Terrorists. Al Qaeda has gained in strength in some places now and all thanks to the Iranian support.

According to the Associated Press, a report prepared by United Nations experts presented to the Security Council stated that despite the defeat of Isis, a radical Islamic terrorist organization in Iraq and most of Syria, it seems likely that a “secret copy” of the extremist group will remain in both countries, with supporters in Afghanistan, Libya, Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Experts from the United Nations said the global Al Qaeda network is much stronger than ISIS in some locations now , including Somalia, Yemen, and South Asia. Experts said that Al-Qaeda in Iran have become more capable. They work with Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, and they have more authority and are more effective than before, particularly with regards to events in Syria.

Iran joins former ISIS members to Al Qaeda

According to reports, Iran increased support for Al-Qaeda reinforcements. Several documents and reports have revealed that Iran is working to bring together former Isis members to build al-Qaeda by using its strategic and historical ties with the organization’s leaders.

A report published in the Sunday times, said al-Qaeda today has rebuilt itself to the point where it can summon tens of thousands of elements with the help of Iran. Tehran is trying to join former members of Isis to al-Qaeda, coordinating with al-Qaeda military leaders who have traveled to Damascus to assemble all ranks of Isis fighters and establish a “new Al-Qaeda organization” similar to the culture of its Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah militias.

Since controlling the last strongholds of Isis organization in Syria and Iraq, Iran’s media machine has been promoting the defeat of the organization to Tehran, its allies and militias, and has abolished the role of the US-led international coalition in defeating the extremist organization. It also tried to falsify facts by confiscating remnants after the defeat of the organization, where Iranian propaganda ignored the role of the Revolutionary Guard and its militias in the emergence of Radical Islamic Organizations as a result of suppressing the peaceful Syrian revolution and the release of extremist groups feeding them. Iran lost more than 3,500 according to semi-official statistics and tens of billions of dollars since their intervention to save Assad in 2012 in battles against the Syrian opposition.

AL-Qaeda leaders in Iran

Adrian Levy and Kathy Scott-Clarke, UK based writers, have confirmed that the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qasim Soleimani, has played the most prominent role in managing the relationship with al-Qaeda since he provided refuge for the family of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders after they fled Afghanistan in 2001. Qasim Soleimani built a residential complex at the heart of a Revolutionary Guard training camp in Tehran.

Iranian support and funding played an important role in reviving al Qaeda’s 400-strong organization when the 9/11 attacks were carried out and the Twin Towers were hit (according to FBI figures). The organization was confronted by the US invasion of Afghanistan, but it recovered with the advent of a nascent organization in 2013. According to reports, Qasem Soleimani used his relations with al-Qaeda in his maneuvers to play on all sides of the conflict to keep Iran at the forefront of possession of all papers of the extremist groups. According to the report, among the evidence, unpublished notes and interviews with senior members of al-Qaeda and the bin laden family show how Suleimani is mastering the relationship with the Sunni jihadist organization described by the official Iranian media as terrorist martyr. He added that Al-Qaeda’s military leaders had been stationed in Tehran until 2015, when Soleimani sent five of them to Damascus, including Mohammed al-Masri, with the task of contacting fighters and leaders of Isis, to encourage them to split and unite al-Qaeda and fugitives, according to US intelligence reports. The reports confirmed that Masri was “the most experienced and capable operational planner among non-detainees in the United States or in any allied country.” The information adds that the coordination between al-Qaeda leaders and the fugitives is through the military commander of Isis, Saif al-Adel, a former Egyptian army colonel who entered into a major row with Ayman al-Zawahiri, who wanted to unify al-Qaeda and speak out in the fighting in Syria. Saif al-Adel ordered his fighters to wait until the end of the organization.

An ideological meeting

Experts believe that Iran’s relationship as an extremist Shiite religious regime with extremist Sunni organizations such as Al-Qaeda and even Tehran’s political and military ties with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, as well as with the Muslim Brotherhood, are not seasonal, as some might imagine. The ideology of Khomeini’s regime is influenced by Sayyid Qutb, Pro-Tehran Shiite groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the rest of the militias in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen have the concept of “jihad” from this school and are therefore ideological and historical well matched, as well as the confluence of political interests. Extreme lasting relationships.

Bin laden documents

The documents, “Abbottabad,” obtained by US forces from the hideout of the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, when he was killed in 2011 in Pakistan, and published by the CIA in November 2017, revealed details of part of Iran’s relationship with Al Qaeda.

Of the 470,000 documents obtained from Bin Laden’s cache, 19 were devoted to this large archive of al-Qaeda’s high profile ties with the Iranian government. One document showed that a senior al-Qaeda member confirmed in a letter that Iran was prepared to provide all that al-Qaeda needed, including funds and weapons, and training camps for Hezbollah in Lebanon in return for the terrorist group attacking US interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf ” , According to an investigation by Thomas Jocelyn and Bill Rajev of the foundation for defense of democracies, about 19 pages of al-Qaeda links to Iran from the Abbottabad documents. According to the documents, the Iranian intelligence services, in some cases, facilitated the issuance of visas for the elements of the al-Qaeda in charge of carrying out operations, and at the same time has housed other groups. “Iran’s intelligence services agreed to provide al-Qaeda operatives with visas and facilities and to harbor other members of al-Qaeda,” said another document, which was negotiated with Iran by Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, an influential al-Qaeda member, before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Iran is fined

Last year, a US court in New York fined Iran for co-operating with al-Qaeda in 9/11 attacks for $ 10.7 billion and other fines of $ 21 billion for the families of American victims of bombings which was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard cells.

References

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/home

https://ctc.usma.edu/the-abbottabad-documents-bin-ladins-security-measures/

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html