Al-Qaeda: Islamist Ecumenism Against the United States and the West

Abstract

Going against the grain of the assumption that Shiites do not collaborate with Sunnis, Ayatollah Khomeini saw potential in co-opting Sunni Salafist during their siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. In the early 1990s, Revolutionary Guards helped Osama bin Laden to relocate to Sudan, then under the leadership of Islamists. The Iranians hoped to use the returning Al-Qaeda fighters to challenge the U.S. interest in Africa and destabilize the pro-Western regimes there. Using Al-Qaeda as a proxy continued after bin Laden relocated to Afghanistan, primarily to undermine presence in the Middle East, a mutual goal. The payoff of this policy was the 1997 attack on the American housing complex in Dhahran, a collaboration between Iran, Al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. Pressured by Qassem Suleimani, Iran hosted a large contingent of fleeing Al-Qaeda members, including members of bin Laden family and some of the top commanders. More recently, the Guards cooperated with elements of Taliban and Al-Qaeda against the American plan to bring the conflict to an end.