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Iranian diplomacy has categorically denied the New York Times report that the Al Qaeda leader was assassinated on August 7 in Tehran by Israeli intelligence agents acting on behalf of the United States.
The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister stressed that there is no presence of “terrorists” from Al Qaeda, a Sunni extremist organization, on the territory of Shiite Iran.
“Sometimes” the “enemies” of the country, Washington and Tel Aviv, “try to link Iran with such organizations by spreading lies, leaking fabricated news in the media, in order to abdicate their responsibility in criminal activities.” “and other terrorist organizations in the region,” said a press release issued by Iranian diplomacy.
However, according to a lengthy report in the US newspaper on Friday, intelligence officials confirm that the alleged protagonist of the deadly terrorist attacks against US embassies in Africa in 1998 Abu and second-in-command to the leader of Al Qaeda, was assassinated en route to Tehran. three months ago.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, known by the military name Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was attacked by two gunmen on a motorcycle on August 7, the anniversary of the attacks on the embassies. He was murdered along with his daughter Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza.
The attack was carried out by Israeli agents on the orders of Washington, according to four officials. The role played by the United States, which has been monitoring the movements of al-Masri and other al Qaeda operatives in Iran for years, is unclear.
The strange thing is that although rumors had circulated about al-Masri’s death, it had not yet been confirmed. For reasons that are not clear, al Qaeda has not announced the death of one of its top leaders, Iranian officials have covered it up, and no country has publicly claimed responsibility for the killings.
Al-Masri, 58, was one of the founders of al-Qaeda and was considered the first to lead the group before the current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, took office.
His name has long been on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and he has been charged in the United States with crimes related to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured hundreds. The FBI offered a $ 10 million reward for information leading to his capture, and his image remained on the list until Friday.
Whether he lived in Iran is questionable, given that Iran and Al Qaeda are sworn enemies. Iran, a Shiite Muslim theocracy, and al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group, have been fighting each other on the battlefield in Iraq and elsewhere.
US intelligence officials say al-Masri has been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003 and has lived freely, at least since 2015, in the Pasdaran district of Tehran, a luxury suburb.
When news of the assassination attempt against him spread, official Iranian media identified the victims as Habib Daoud, a Lebanese history teacher, and his 27-year-old daughter Miriam. Lebanese news channel MTV and social media accounts linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard reported that Daoud was a member of Hezbollah, the Iranian military organization in Lebanon.
It seemed logical. The assassination occurred in mid-summer with frequent explosions in Iran, increasing tensions with the United States, just days after the huge and deadly explosion in the port of Beirut and a week before the UN Security Council, on the possibility to extend the embargo. weapons against Tehran. It has been speculated that the assassination may have been a Western provocation meant to provoke a violent Iranian reaction before the Security Council vote.
After all, the targeted killing of two gunmen on a motorcycle fits the pattern of previous killings of Iranian nuclear scientists by Israelis. The fact that Israel would kill a Hezbollah official who had vowed to fight Israel also seemed to make sense, although Israel had deliberately avoided killing Hezbollah agents so as not to provoke a war.
In fact, there was no Habib Dowd. Several Lebanese with close ties to Iran said they had not heard of him or his assassination. A search of the Lebanese media found no reports that a Lebanese history professor was assassinated in Iran last summer, while another researcher with access to lists of all the country’s history professors said no Habib Daoud was mentioned.
One of the intelligence officials said that Habib Daoud was a pseudonym given to al-Masri by Iranian officials and that teaching history was a cover up. In October, Egypt’s former Islamic Jihad leader Nabil Naim, who described al-Masri as an old friend, told the Saudi news channel Al Arabiya the same.
Iran may have had good reasons for wanting to hide the fact that it harbored a proven enemy, but it is surprising that they did so with the al-Qaeda leader.
Some terrorism experts believe that hosting al Qaeda operatives in Tehran could provide some assurance that the group will not conduct operations in Iran. US counterterrorism officials believe that Iran may have allowed them to remain in operations against the United States, a common adversary.
This will not be the first time that Iran has joined forces with Sunni fighters, as it backs Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Taliban.
“Iran uses sectarianism as an obstacle when it comes to the regime, but it is also willing to ignore the Sunni-Shiite divide when it suits Iranian interests,” said Colin P. Clark, a counterterrorism analyst at the Sufan Center.
Iran has consistently denied hosting or hosting al Qaeda operatives. In 2018, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi had argued that due to Iran’s long and porous border with Afghanistan, some members of Al Qaeda had entered Iran but were arrested and returned to their home countries.
However, Western intelligence officials point out that al Qaeda leaders have been detained under house arrest by the Iranian government, which has since reached at least two agreements with the group to release some of them in 2011 and 2015.
Although al Qaeda has been overshadowed in recent years by the rise of the Islamic State, it remains resilient and has active cooperation around the world, a UN report on counterterrorism published in July concluded.
Representatives from the Israeli prime minister’s office and the Trump administration’s National Security Council declined to comment on the NYT report.
