Newsweek On Iran's Relationship With Hamas and Al Qaeda

This is a very interesting read on the current crisis in the Middle East and Iran's role in fomenting the violence from Newsweek. I have excerpted two key passages below on Iran's relationship with the Sunni Hamas and al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi below.

On Shiite Iran's long-standing relationship with the Sunni Hamas [Emphasis Added]:

Jordan's security services, fearful that their territory might become a base—or a target—for terrorist attacks, have tracked the Iranian connection very closely. Jordanian intelligence sources, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of security issues, recall that by 1997 their government was arresting and interrogating Hamas members who had received, in the words of one veteran security officer, "religious, military, counterinterrogation and even intelligence training in Iran." Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was living in Jordan at the time, and that's where the Israelis tried to assassinate him. When he recovered, he made several trips to Tehran before the Jordanians told him not to come back, in 1999.

Iran's support for the Palestinian militants only continued to grow. After the second intifada against Israel began in 2000, the Israelis intercepted boatloads of arms sent from Iran or through Hizbullah to Palestinian guerrilla groups. The last ship, intercepted in 2003, was a fishing trawler carrying not only munitions and manuals from Lebanon to Gaza, but a Hizbullah bomb-maker as well.

Meshaal ended up in Syria, where he remains with a high public profile. Last week he met reporters at the Four Seasons Hotel in the capital. His ties to the Syrian government? "It's clear we have bad relations," he joked. "That's why I'm giving a press conference in Damascus." And his links to Hizbullah? "They are part of the resistance [to Israel], so of course we have contacts."

And then there is this on Iran's relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda [Emphasis Added]:

Although Iran presents itself as the defender of Shiites in Iraq's worsening sectarian warfare, it has also had at least a passing relationship with Al Qaeda terrorists who have made every effort to instigate a blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites. The late, unlamented Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi initially made his way from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2001 through Iranian territory, and some intelligence reports suggest a more extensive relationship with Iran, at least in the early days of his terrorist career.


Note: But wait, you're probably thinking: you've argued (based on numerous pieces of evidence) that Zarqawi had a long-standing relationship with Saddam's Iraq and here you are citing evidence that suggests he had a relationship with Iran. How can this be? Welcome to the terror network. This is precisely the paradigm that was laid out in the Clinton administration's original indictment of al Qaeda in 1998. In that document, the Clinton administration cited al Qaeda's ties to both Iraq and Iran. Both states - despite being long-time bitter enemies - were able to support the same terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, against their common enemy: the United States.

Don't believe this is possible? Well, in addition to the Clinton administration's original indictment of al Qaeda, I would argue, all you have to do is look at what happened in Hassan al-Turabi's Sudan during the early 1990's. Terrorists of all stripes - including a budding al Qaeda - were given refuge and both Iraqi and Iranian intelligence officials were invited to mix and mingle with them in Khartoum and elsewhere. The record is clear on this.

And, take one more example: Hamas. At the same time Iran was inviting Khaled Meshaal into Tehran, as explained by Newsweek, guess who else was supporting Hamas? Saddam Hussein. There are plenty of other examples to choose from as well.