Posted on 04/22/2013 7:29:44 PM PDT by tobyhill
Police in Canada said Monday that two men suspected of plotting to derail a passenger train were guided by Al Qaeda elements in Iran, but the statement surprised many experts who study terrorism in the Middle East and Iran.
“It frankly doesn’t compute for me,” said Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "If there is any link, I would think it was extremely tangential."
Iran and Al Qaeda have frequently had chilly relations, according to Slavin and other experts. Iran is majority Shiite, while Al Qaeda is firmly Sunni. In Syria, Al Qaeda has jumped into the fray alongside opposition fighters while Iran has backed President Bashar Assad. Iran has also held Al Qaeda members in the country under house arrest, monitoring their activities. Documents confiscated from Osama bin Laden's hide-out in Pakistan and released last year suggested discord between the two.
Canadian police said there was no reason to believe that the plotted attacks were sponsored by any state, which would mean the Iranian government was not involved. Police provided no further details regarding the alleged involvement of Al Qaeda elements in Iran in the plot.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Yup. Islam is global Scientology, with a murderous bent.
Canadians played a major role in saving our personnel in Iran during the hostage crisis. ARGO just rubbed salt in that wound and this plot would have killed both Americans and Canadians. That was my first thought when the bombs went off in Boston. What does the Marathon commemorate? The Battle of Marathon where the Persians were defeated in 490 BC.
Before Iraq War.
There is no way Saddam would work with terrorists because he is secular.
After Iraq War.
There is no way the Sunni and Shiite will ever work together on terrorism.
Only when it is in the Iranian national interest. The Iranian regime may be crooks and rabble rousers, but they don't have a death wish- the Iran-Iraq War showed that.
“unexpected”
She must be the threat assessment director for the Boston Marathon.
Canadians played a major role in saving our personnel in Iran during the hostage crisis.
Your kind words appreciated. We now learn one of the two men apprended this manner is from Tunisia and the other from the United Arab Emirates.
I hear no praise as yet for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the American arm of intelligence, who worked together. Well done and thank God, we did not get another horrible jolt.
I have read Sir Edward Creasy and his "Fifteen Decisive Battles" (1851). He credits the Athenians with the great victory over Persia. He reckoned the whole of Western Civilization would have been lost with a defeat. Be that as it may, I remember one phrase from his narative. This of the Persians.
"Their arrows darkened the Sun".
Excuse the ramble but if we of the English speaking peoples "do not hang together, we will surely hang apart".
It would seem they've been studying the wrong book, doesn't it?
You say Sunni, I say Shia -— let’s call the whole thing off.
The message that keeps repeating over and over again is that most of the experts cited in the daily news --- aren't.
They just have cushy forever jobs and whether they are right or wrong doesn't really matter.
What difference does it make?
Never finding what is logically obvious to the rest of us makes life easier for everybody; from the fake president down to the littlest delusional tyrant bureaucrat.
Duh! I’m really, really, really gettin’ scared now. No shiite, for real.
Maybe your brain needs a software update. Or just admit you are wrong.
The Soviets actively supported Iraq against Khomeni in the decade-long Iran-Iraq War.
The two bombers in Boston can now take credit for stiring the “hornets nest” for all the terroist groups around.
I predict that there will hundreds of similar incidents happeing across the U.S. and in Canada in the not too distant future. Mexico on the other hand? Well they have their issues, like sneaking into the U.S.
Nah. The important take-away from the Boston bombings is that no group in the world was willing to take credit for the event.
They fear the drone wars.
It has taken *years* of killing leaders worldwide from the air to reach this point.
Yes they did because Iraq was a long term client state of the Soviets.
However, Iran still didn’t support the Mujahideen or Islamist separatist movements in the USSR because Khomeini valued their strategic value against the US more than their animosity towards atheism.
Incorrect.
I don’t get where I’m incorrect. Iran provided no assistance to the Mujahideen, other than some tiny Shia groups in a failed attempt to export their revolution early on. Iran hated the mujahideen and the Taliban, viewing them as Pakistani oriented.
Iran even backed Armenia against Azerbaijan because the Azeris were orienting themselves towards the West and needed to be “punished”.
Khomeini did not back the Soviets against the mujahideen.
Ok fine, “backed” was too strong of a word to use. However, the mujahideen were not supported by Iran either.
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