Laden docs may bolster Iran-Qaeda link

Washington : The CIA’s release of documents seized during the 2011 raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appears to bolster US claims that Iran supported the extremist network leading up to the September 11 terror attacks.

US intelligence officials and prosecutors have long said Iran formed loose ties to the terror organisation starting in 1991, something noted in a 19-page al-Qaeda report in Arabic that was included in the release of some 47,000 other documents by the CIA.

For its part, Iran has long denied any involvement with al-Qaeda, and its foreign minister disparaged the documents in a tweet late Thursday: “A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA&FDD fake news w/ selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can’t whitewash role of US allies in 9/11.”

The report included in the CIA document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Iran’s arch-rival Saudi Arabia, could look across the Muslim world’s religious divide to partner with the Mideast’s Shiite power to target his ultimate enemy, the United States.

“Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric,” the al-Qaeda report reads.

The Associated Press examined a copy of the report released by the Long War Journal, a publication backed by the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a think tank fiercely critical of Iran and sceptical of its nuclear deal with world powers. The CIA gave the Long War Journal early access to the material.

The release comes as US President Donald Trump has refused to recertify Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and faces domestic pressure at home over investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The unsigned 19-page report is dated in the Islamic calendar year 1428 – 2007 – and offers what appears to be a history of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran. It says Iran offered al-Qaeda fighters “money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia.”