Al Qaeda and Iran’s chilling new alliance

What does the world’s foremost Shia power and the most notorious Sunni terror group have in common? Given that the two great branches of Islam rarely see eye to eye, the layman would be forgiven for thinking that the answer is ‘not much’. 

It isn’t just the layman who has concluded that Iran and Al Qaeda are oil and water either. When reporting on the assassination of an Al Qaeda chief in Tehran last year, the New York Times remarked: ‘That he had been living in Iran was surprising, given that Iran and al-Qaeda are bitter enemies.’

Surprising to the New York Times, perhaps. But not surprising to the intelligence community, which has been tracking the development of this dangerous collaboration for 30 years.

In a speech on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the relationship public. ‘Unlike in Afghanistan, when Al Qaeda was hiding in the mountains, Al Qaeda today is operating under the hard shell of the Iranian regime’s protection,’ he said at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.