Dubai: The Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Khalid Bin Salman, in a series of tweets has said Al Qaida and Iran have been partners all along; they have been targeting the US and Saudi Arabia for years.
Prince Khalid started his tweets affirming Saudi Arabia’s stand against terrorism by describing groups such as Daesh and Al Qaida and Iran as two sides of the same coin. He added that the Iranian regime was the sponsor of terrorism and infamous for plotting attacks in the Middle East as well as in other parts of the world.
إن مكافحة الاٍرهاب كانت ولا تزال أحد أهم أولويات المملكة، وقد حققت المملكة الكثير من الإنجازات في مواجهة الاٍرهاب وأيدولوجيته المتطرفة، سواء كان ذلك ضد التنظميات الإرهابية مثل القاعدة وداعش، أو ضد الأنظمة الراعية للإرهاب مثل النظام الإيراني، فكلاهما وجهان لعملة واحدة.
— Khalid bin Salman خالد بن سلمان (@kbsalsaud) July 21, 2018
He went on to document his allegations by linking Al Qaida and Iran. “Iran’s relationship with Al Qaida dates back to the early 1990s. When Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyah met with Osama Bin Laden in Sudan to trade expertise, both terrorists were united in their goal of attacking KSA and the US.”
“The 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in KSA, which killed 19 Americans, [was] carried out by Ahmad Al Mughassil, [who] was trained by [the] Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He stayed hiding in Iran till 2015, when he was captured in Lebanon with an Iranian passport, and [he] is now imprisoned in KSA.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a branch of Iran’s Armed forces, and in many intelligence reports they are said to handle all of Iran’s operations including agents around the world and the formation of militias across the Arab world.
In another example of the relations between Al Qaida and Iran, Prince Khalid cited the US embassy explosions in 1988, in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, “A US Federal Judge found that Al Qaida attacks in 1998 against US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam would not have been possible without direct assistance from Iran. Prior to their meetings with Iranian agents, Al Qaida did not possess the technical expertise to carry out the attack.”
Prince Khalid also tweeted that the Bin Laden files, which were retrieved from his hideout in Abbottabad and published last November by CIA, were proof of the ties.
“This proves decisively the complicity between the Iranian regime and Al Qaida in recruiting and training and facilitating the passage of hijackers to attack the Kingdom and the United States. Bin Laden himself described Iran as the safe passage for Al Qaida.”
He attached a link to the files, which were in Bin Laden's handwriting.
هذا رابط لأحد الوثائق المكتوبة بخط أسامة بن لادن ونشرتها الاستخبارات الامريكية، تظهر الدليل على تعاون القاعدة والنظام الإيراني واستهدافهم للمملكة وحلفاءها. بن لادن وصف إيران انها الممر الآمن للأموال والأفراد والمراسلات الخاصة بالقاعدة https://t.co/ALPvzhRqnB
— Khalid bin Salman خالد بن سلمان (@kbsalsaud) July 21, 2018
Going forward in his tweets to 2001, he added: “In 2001, a number of Al Qaida leaders fled to Iran, including Saif Al Adel and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who remained in Iran under the sponsorship of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, where they planned the 2003 Riyadh bombings.”
The Saudi ambassador added that Iran's support of terrorism didn’t stop at Al Qaida. “The operations of the terrorist regime also spread to many countries, whether by blowing up or assassinating opponents. The last of these was revealed by the attempt of one of its diplomats, Assad Allah Assadi, to carry out an explosion in a group of opponents to the regime in France. He was arrested and convicted in Germany.”
The series of tweets were concluded by the ambassador asserting that the leaders and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will remain an impenetrable obstacle in the face of all those who spread chaos and terrorism, headed by Iran and terrorist organisations, and will continue its war against extremism.
