“This isn’t just a regional problem. It has global implications.”
Al Qaeda and Iran had a longtime relationship with Hezbollah providing some of the training and 9/11 hijackers passing through Iran.
The head of Al Qaeda is living in Iran (and it would have made sense to take him out while we were bombing Iran anyway.)
When Al Qaeda’s people first arrived after 9/11 en masse, Iran rolled out the red carpet for them. The Exile, by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, describes how “they were put up at the white monolith of the four-star Howeyzeh Hotel on Taleqani Street, just down from General Suleimani’s headquarters in the former U.S. embassy” with “room service, a ladies-only gym, movies, and a swimming pool for the children” where “former fighters sat down together in comfort for the first time since 9/11.” The hotel did what Gitmo failed to do to Al Qaeda.
When Al-Adel headed to Iran, he was wanted for the deaths of Americans in the ‘Black Hawk Down’ attacks in Somalia and the bombings of our embassies in Africa. Even while supposedly in Iranian custody, he ordered the 2003 bombings in Saudi Arabia that killed 9 Americans.
According to reports at the time, Al-Adel had “fled to Iran last year to avoid U.S. forces searching for him in neighboring Afghanistan, but continued to operate” while also supposedly being under “house arrest”. He has now been under house arrest for twenty years and in those two decades, he’s gone from Al Qaeda’s no. 3 to no. 2 and now all the way to no. 1.
The 9/11 Commission report noted that “senior managers in al Qaeda maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah” and that “Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah.” The report went on to describe how Al Qaeda was able to move its people through Iran.
Now the alliance between Iran and Al Qaeda is coming further out of the closet due to the growing relationship between Iran’s Houthi terrorists in Yemen and Al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate, Al-Shabab (which a number of Somali Muslim settlers in America have funded.)
In 2024, al-Shabaab dispatched a more senior envoy, Sheikh Ahmed Elmi Samatar, to work alongside Jibril. Samatar presented the Houthis with a lengthy weapons wish list, viewed by the Journal, which included shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, 107 mm Katyusha rockets, Dragunov sniper rifles, explosive attack drones, antitank missiles and U.S. night-vision gear.
A U.S. military intelligence official confirmed that al-Shabaab sought advanced weaponry from the Houthis, in addition to rifles, machine guns and ammunition.
“You have al-Shabaab, al Qaeda’s largest and most lucrative affiliate, gaining access to more sophisticated weapons and training,” U.S. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of American forces in Africa, told The Wall Street Journal. “On the other side, the Houthis are extending their geographic reach, gaining a foothold that could further destabilize one of the world’s most critical economic chokepoints,” he said. “This isn’t just a regional problem. It has global implications.”
Front companies in Yemen disguise the shipments as civilian products and move them to Mukalla and other ports, the Yemeni intelligence report said. The weapons cross the Gulf of Aden in speedboats or fishing vessels and are transferred ashore on poorly monitored sections of coastline in northern Somalia, according to the U.S. military-intelligence official. They are transported to al-Shabaab combat units in southern Somalia, where the insurgents’ activities are concentrated.
In April 2025, the U.S. destroyed two unflagged boats entering Somali waters from Yemen, carrying what U.S. Africa Command described as advanced conventional weapons. It isn’t clear what items on the lengthy al-Shabaab wish list have reached the militants in Somalia. But the idea that al-Shabaab might acquire attack drones or other arms capable of striking U.S. and Somali bases from the air makes both militaries nervous.Al-Shabaab, which pays in cash, can well afford the Houthi goods and services. The militant group brings in at least $100 million a year extorting money from Somali businesses and passersby at roadside checkpoints and the port of Mogadishu, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment.
That means sending money to Somalia ultimately aids Al Qaeda. And it means that deals with Iran ultimately become deals with Al Qaeda.
Wellington says
The burden which Islam is to the world is never ending. I suppose it was likely, not a given but likely, that man would get a religious ideology that was a menace to man in sundry ways. It happened.
somehistory says
one huge “wild beast” working, lying, raping, stealing, destroying, murdering to take over the lives of all humans. and rule with demonic evil.
Wellington says
Thomas Jefferson, somehistory, called the Koran “demonic,” echoing what you stated. And I don’t believe Keith Ellison, still unfortunately the Attorney General of Minnesota, and who took the oath of office when elected to the House of Representatives on Jefferson’s copy of the Koran, knew then (and most likely still to this day) what Jefferson thought of Islam. The Sage of Monticello kept a copy of the Koran in his library much as to this day why I keep a copy of Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto in my library (and a copy of the Koran too). After all, it’s best to be optimally informed about what enemies of true civilization intend.
P.S., Jefferson’s library, which became the foundation of the Library of Congress, was far, far better than mine. Easy call here.
somehistory says
Thank you for your educated response, Wellington. I can learn, and have, a lot from reading your comments.
Tony says
Islam is a Criminal-Terrorist-Gang Enterprise against all Non-Muslims by Muslim funding, teaching, and supporting discrimination, deceit, violence, and terrorism as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Qur’an(Qur’an 9:5, 29, 41, 111; 49:15, etc.). Actually, Islam is the daily practice of Islamic Law, Sharia, which is created from the Qur’an, the Sira, the Hadith, the Tafsir, the Tarikh, and past Islamic Legal Rulings. Furthermore, Muslim Islamization includes Muslim Criminal-Terrorist-Gang Organizations using Governments, Bureaucracies, Mosques, Muslim Homes, Muslim Schools, Halal Organizations, Islamic Centers, Sharia Courts, Muslim Non-Profits, etc. to fund, to educate, and to support Islam Law and Muslim Propaganda against all Non-Muslims(Qur’an 1:5; 3:51,101, 118; 5:3, 48; 8:60, 45:18; etc.).
Allah in Qur’an 9:28-29 commands, “O you who have believed, surely only the polytheists are unclean[dirty]… Engage in war with those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day[Non-Muslims]. Nor forbid what Allah and his messenger forbid[via Islamic Law], nor believe in the religion of the truth[Islam] among those who have given the book[Jews and Christians] until they pay the jizyah[Extortion Payment] out of hand and they are subdued[disgraced].” Ultimately, Allah desires to fill hell with Non-Muslims(Qur’an 7:18; 11:119; 32:13; 98:6, etc.).