Iran Press/America: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claim that Iran and Al Qaeda are collaborating is at best an exaggeration that is not supported by any available information, US intelligence officers and officials with the State and Defense Department told TIME magazine.
That finding, could complicate potential US administration efforts for going to war with Iran if tensions between Washington and Tehran keep escalating.
The assessment was delivered in a classified briefing with dozens of House members on Capitol Hill.
According to the three sources, one of the officials who briefed the members said the US government does not have evidence of operational coordination between the Iranian government and the terrorist group responsible for 9/11 attack with respect to the current threat stream.
Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly connected Iran and al Qaeda, claiming the ties “very real.”
But US officials say that he dramatically overstated the case.
“The Secretary has blown the level of collusion between Iran and a few of the remnants of al Qaeda way out of proportion,” says a senior US official who follows developments in Iran closely. “There have been occasional marriages of convenience, but there is nothing in the intelligence to suggest that any of them has been consummated in any grand anti-American alliance.”
Also three officials noted, the 'Islamic State in Iraq and Syria', al Qaeda’s direct descendant in Syria and Iraq, took credit for a 2017 attack on Iran’s parliament building and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people. 101/205
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