Barbara Slavin: The Tangled History of Al Qaeda's Ties To Iran

Barbara Slavin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, former senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today, and the author of a 2007 book on the United States and Iran, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Despite the alarmist headlines, no one should have been shocked by last week's U.S. Treasury Department designation of a Syrian based in Iran as a conduit for sending money and personnel to al Qaeda.

Iran has had links to members of what became known as al Qaeda since the early 1990s, when both had a presence in Sudan. What many may not know is that the United States missed several opportunities to divide the two and gain custody of senior al Qaeda figures and relatives of Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaeda, with its militant Sunni ideology that despises Shiites as worse than apostates, is hardly a natural ally for the world's only Shiite theocracy. Iranian officials indignantly denied the Treasury Department's allegations; one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that Iran opposes al Qaeda adherents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Iran's leaders, however, share al Qaeda's hatred of the United States and Israel, and both have a long history of grievances against the West.

Their tactical ties were forged in Khartoum, when the Sudanese capital was a virtual resort for Islamist militants and agents of rogue states, including bin Laden; members of Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese protégé; and Iran's Quds Force, the external arm of the Revolutionary Guards. According to the 9/11 Commission, in the 1990s the Iranians and al Qaeda reached an "informal agreement to cooperate in providing support -- even if only training -- for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States. Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives."..