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A previously unknown and unappreciated fact about Al Qaeda concerns the ties it has forged with both Iran and Lebanon as well as with Hezbollah , the feared and resourceful resistance movement of Lebanese Shia supported by these two states and Syria. In addition to uniting the two most powerful Egyptian terrorist groups, Osama’s other achievement was to forge a working relationship between Shia and Sunni in keeping with his goal rather than rule orientated doctrine. By virtueof this strategic partnership he united the Middle East’s two most dangerous Terrorist groups – Al Qaeda and Hizbollah; the latter had long been regarded as the region’s most technically advanced outfit. one that Hamas, Palestininan Islamic Jihad and the GIA sought to emulate and copy. Iran received nearly 10 % of Osama’s outgoing calls from Afghanistan from mid 1996 to 1998 suggesting that Iran was maintaining a relationship with Al Qaeda even after he developed close ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan a regime most unfriendly towards Iran.

Osama was closely supported in this enterprise by Mamdouh Manmud Salim, Abu Fahdl al _makkee and Abu Fahdl al -Iraqi who persuaded otehr Al Qaeda members of the need to overcome secterianism. According to the U.S. court record Osama was livin in Khartoum when the renowned Sudanese religious leaderAhmed Abdel Rahman Hamadabi brought him to meet with the Al Qaeda leadership. Sheikh Nonami represented the Iranian Shias , who occupied an Iranian government maintained offfice in Khartoum, and had access to the highest eschelons of power in Tehran. This meeting was chaired by Osama, was the first in a series between Al Qaeda and Iran on the one hand and Hezbollah on the other. Al Qaeda was keen to invest ime and effort from a technical point of view too. Al Qaeda had previously discovered that it had technical difficulties in bombing big building, having failed in February 1003 in its plan to collapse one tower of the World Trade Center , one onto the other which it hoped would result in an estimated 250,000 casualties. Within a few weeks of the Khartoum meeting, however Iran consulted Hezbollah and Al Qaeda was invited to send a contingent to Lebanon.

The Al Qaeda team included Abu Talha al – Sudani, Sarif-al-Islam el-Masry and other trainers, including Abu Jaffer el-Masry, the explosives expert who ran the the Jihad Wal in Afghanistan. In addition to developing this capability with Iranian assistance. Al Qaeda also received a large amount of explosives, from Iran that were used in bombing East African targets, The training teams brought Hezbollab training and propoganda videos with the intention of passing on their knowledge to other Al Aaeda members and Islamist groups.

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