Once upong a time, al-Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were allies. With their offshoots Nusra Front and Hezbollah engaged in a death match in Syria, it was only a matter of time before the parent organization would turn on each other. Al-Qaeda struck first with their bombings of the Iranian embassy in Beirut. Now they up the ante and are threatening to strike Iran itself and kill the leader of the IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Al Qaeda said that it is planning to assassinate Iran’s top military general, underscoring tensions in the rocky relationship between Tehran and the global terror network.
Al Qaeda claimed in a recent statement to have sent two of its terrorist forces into Iran with the goal of killing Qassem Soleimani, the general of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“We will not assassinate the commander of Iran’s Quds Force by gunshots, but we intend to kill him by a suicide attack,” al Qaeda was reported to have said in a late December statement reported on in the Iranian state-run media.
It remains unclear who in al Qaeda issued the reported statement.
Grab the popcorn and enjoy the festivities on Islamic vs. Islamic violence.
