MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Agence France Presse, October 18, 2012
WASHINGTON: The United States posted a reward of up to $12 million on Thursday for help in tracking down two Iran-based al Qaeda financial backers, accused of funneling money to extremists in Syria.
The State Department named the men as Muhsin al-Fadhli and his deputy Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, saying both “facilitate the movement of funds and operatives through Iran on behalf of the al Qaeda terrorist network.”
“Al Qaeda elements in Iran, led by Fadhli, are working to move fighters and money through Turkey to support al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Syria,” the department said in a statement. “Fadhli also is leveraging his extensive network of Kuwaiti jihadist donors to send money to Syria via Turkey.” Fadhli, 31, was among the few al Qaeda leaders who was given advance notice that the group planned to strike the United States on September 1, 2001.
He is also alleged to have raised money to fund the October 2002 attack on the French ship [....]
Also see, with links to State & Treasury announcements:
US puts $12M bounty on Iran-based al Qaeda money men, freezes their assets
By Julian Pecquet, The Hill, October 18, 2012
The U.S. State Department on Thursday announced a $12 million bounty for information on the precise location of two Iran-based al Qaeda money-men. [....]
Separately, the Treasury Department announced Thursday that it was freezing any assets al-Harbi may hold under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting Americans from engaging in transactions with him. Al-Fadhli's assets were frozen in 2005 on suspicion he provided support to Iraqi insurgents fighting U.S. and multinational forces. [....]
Comments
Total bullshit. What the State Department and Treasury statements (as well as all the news stories) fail to address is what plausible motivation the Iranian government might have to give this Al Qa'ida network safe haven -- when it is operating at cross purposes to Iran's core strategic interests. The right-wing blog Long War Journal concedes:
Right, I forgot how naturally duplicitous Iranians were! More likely, the U.S. is laying the groundwork to explain how, after Assad falls, all those weapons ended up in the hands of Syrian and foreign jihadis. It couldn't possibly be that they are being supplied by our great good friends, the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Qataris. Good heavens, no.
by acanuck on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 12:58am
The Treasury press release has more details than the State press release on what they believe the situation with the state of Iran is; note that it also implicates "Kuwait jihadist donors":
While I agree it's important to be skeptical about what western governments say about Iran and about the quality of western governments' intelligence about Iran, I think it's also important to keep an open mind to theses possibilities as well:
that what is called "Al Qaeda," may have changed, and
that the very much changed situation in the neighborhood may have caused alliances to become different than they were in the Bush years. I think it's important not to read the news about the area as if what was true during the Bush years is always going to continue to be true. I.E., just because the Bush administration lied about Al Qaeda in Iraq and Iran does not mean that they or similar will never ever will operate there nor does it mean that state of Iran cannot change its mind about what they think is beneficial to their core strategic interests.
Seems to me that these US statements could demonize and implicate the state of Iran much more than they do if they wanted to, but they instead allow ambiguity by the use of the term "Iran-based."
I could be wrong but sense it is more of an attempt by the US to keep names that they consider major Al Qaeda out of the Syrian insurgency, and it may actually be targeted more towards Sunni-radical funding than towards Iran. Or at least to have on the record that they saw the problem developing and were against it, even though they are not screaming directly at the leaders of Gulf States about it right now. A "CYA" as it were.
In a roundabout way, this could also be an admission that the US government doesn't think the Iranian government is as all-controlling of everything that happens within its borders as more conservative anti-Iran western groups tend to believe.(And you, apparently?) I think more like this: if Iran is so much in control of what goes on within its borders, how come it has not been 100% successful at stopping attacks by Jundallah within its borders? We don't know for a fact that this is news that the west has, maybe through Turkey, for example, that Iran doesn't and that Iran , after checking it out itself, could say, arrest them for violating the terms of their agreement in the next week.
What I bascially think is that it's a wait and see, a "developing."
One thing I am certain of is from extensive reading at the time that during the Bush years when several Al Qaeda of import were being held by Iran, that the story ended up being one of Iran simply holding them as possible pawns. They weren't sure of what to do with them, didn't want them going and causing more havoc in Afghanistan, and so basically thought, what the heck, as long as we make sure and keep them under tether, they might use them somehow in the future.
by artappraiser on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 11:21am
duplicate deleted
by artappraiser on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 12:46pm
According to this VOA piece by Mana Rabiee published 3 hours ago, this is indeed as I suspected, more about pressuring Kuwait, and Qatar, to control their contributors to Qaeda jihad, than it is about pressuring Iran:
by artappraiser on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 12:45pm