Middle East Focus-Arabia Deserta: Al-Qaeda and Iran: the Saudi Angle, Monitored Telephones, Stupid Terrorists……

Arabia Deserta

Al-Qaeda and Iran: the Saudi Angle, Monitored Telephones, Stupid Terrorists……

“Is al-Qaeda Iranian? For years we have been reading about a special unit of al-Qaeda that fled from Qandahar to Iran in 2001. This story was unbelievable at the time for one reason: al-Qaeda is an extremist Sunni group that considers Shi’as heretics, and the Iranian regime is Shi’a extremist. But two years later there was a Riyadh explosion. A monitored telephone call revealed that the speaker, who was giving instructions, was an al-Qaeda leader who had been rumored to be among those who had fled to Iran, and the call originated in Iran......Despite the verbal attacked on al-Qaeda by Iran, especially during the ‘bloody events’ in Iraq there was evidence of cooperation between the two.....” A Al-Rashid (Asharq Alawsat)

This leading editorial ties al-Qaeda activities in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, and other places to Iran. His theory is that the organization has evolved in the same way many Palestinian and other groups in the seventies spawned new groups that were often mercenaries for rent. An interesting idea. Mr. al-Rashid is close to the Saudi leadership, but I have my doubts.

Can an al-Qaeda leader be stupid enough to make a phone call from Iran, giving instructions for a bombing attack? Would he be dumb enough not to realize that all calls from Iran to Saudi Arabia, or to any Persian Gulf country, are always monitored across the Gulf, have been for almost twenty years? Just as they are probably monitored in Iran? It seems unlikely, but then again, if they are stupid enough to espouse the Salafi ideology, perhaps they can be stupid enough to make an insecure operational call from Iran to Riyadh.
Cheers
mhg
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