Al-Qaeda papers highlight tense dealings with Iran

In the rigid enemy-or-ally world view of Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants, Iran occupied a spot somewhere in between -- a state seen as arrogant, enigmatic and driven by self interest, according to newly released al-Qaeda documents.

Yet there is also a sense that al-Qaeda recognizes the importance of Iran's role in the region and the need to keep some level of dialogue.

The papers – seized in last year's raid on bin Laden's Pakistan hide-out and posted online Thursday by the US Army's Combating Terrorism Center – portray al-Qaeda's relations with Iran as clouded by deep mutual distrust and sharply divergent interests.

A June 2009 al-Qaeda memo – possibly to bin Laden – refers to the Iranian government as "criminals'' in a no-holds bashing of its opaque and unpredictable policies.

"The criminals did not send us any letter,'' wrote al-Qaeda's top Afghanistan commander, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, about the earlier kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat in Pakistan that was believed to have been carried out by militants linked to al-Qaeda.

"Such behavior is, of course, not unusual for (the Iranians); indeed it is typical of their mindset and methods,'' continued al-Rahman, who was killed the following year in a CIA drone strike in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. "They do not wish to appear to be negotiating with us or responding to our pressures.''

In one narrow sense, al-Qaeda and the West share this much: exasperation over Tehran's shifting and often contradictory messages that extend all the way to talks over its nuclear program.

The full extent of the interplay between Iran and al-Qaeda remains unclear to Western policymakers. But the newly disclosed documents reinforce the long-held consensus that there is little common ground.

Al-Qaeda operatives – and even bin Laden relatives – used Iran as an escape route during the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan after the Sept 11 attacks.

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