Al-Qaeda, or the old 'services office'

In the beginning, there was military activity under the slogan "services office" in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden worked there and most of its activities surrounded the recruitment of Saudi and Arab youths as mujahideens to fight the Soviets. This was around 30 years ago. The Soviets eventually left and the office was shut down. As international attention shifted away from Afghanistan in the 1990s, Bin Laden, who was at odds with the Saudi Arabian government, and Ayman Zawhiri, the Muslim Brotherhood defector who was at odds with the Egyptian government, returned and reopened the office under a new banner titled "al-Qaeda." Al-Qaeda opens its doors Over the period of two decades, the concept of the "services' office" was cloned by promoting Islam, recruiting youths and managing a war from afar. Ever since, the organization has been active at targeting many areas, except Iran and Israel. After its defeat in Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda abandoned the idea of a centralized organization and turned into a chain of "supermarkets" that spread under different names like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and others. If we understand the concept of the old "services' office,” which recruited youths to fight the Soviets, then we can understand al-Qaeda's confrontation with the other camp. The difference is that those managing the war, Iran along with the Syrian regime, have never openly appeared to be doing so. They have previously led operations by using Shiite youths in Lebanon and Kuwait. Imad Mughaniyah was one of the most prominent fighters. These youths led al-Qaeda for 1o years and implemented audacious operations like hijacking planes, kidnapping foreigners in Beirut and attempting to assassinate Kuwait's emir. An outside influence Iran realized, however, that this activity could lead to a direct confrontation with superpowers and regional countries alike. Therefore, the Iranians, in cooperation with the security regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, started to manage al-Qaeda without leaving their fingerprints. Al-Qaeda, upon Iran's orders, targeted Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United States. A number of al-Qaeda leaders moved to Iran, like Sief al-Adel, Suleiman Abu al-Ghaith and Bin Laden's sons. Others like Nasser al-Qaraawi and Majed al-Majed also moved there. The justification for the move was that they were using Iran to serve their own aims. The truth of the Iranians' management of al-Qaeda appears clearer in Syria today. Al-Qaeda, through its branch the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), sabotaged the Syrian revolution by assassinating its leaders and targeting its areas. The ISIL is winning Syria's war while al-Assad's forces, Hezbollah's militias and Iraqi's League of the Righteous, are failing. The ISIL succeeded at robbing people of their children and money and at the same time gaining their sympathy via its propaganda campaigns in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq. For years now, we have been talking about the lie of al-Qaeda and about the falsification of the meaning of jihad, but it seems it's difficult for believers to think with their heads when they listen with their hearts. Iran managed to use these groups to target its rivals in the region, tarnish their image and pit the world against them. Iran, thanks to false jihad, has become the one governing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and threatening the Gulf and Yemen, and has convinced the Americans that it has all the bargaining chips. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arab Today.