The Al-Qaeda attack had Americans from coast-to-coast guffawing in laughter over what many viewed as one lunatic attacking another lunatic for being a lunatic.
Al-Qaeda said: “Al-Qaeda succeeded in what Iran couldn’t. Therefore, it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11, and what better way to do so than conspiracy theories.” Al-Qaeda also accused the Islamic Republic of not being serious in its anti-Americanism, merely voicing it for political benefit in what Al-Qaeda called “lip service jihad.”
The comments were a response to Ahmadi-nejad’s speech before the UN General Assembly last month and many interviews he gave in New York saying that as an engineer he knew that two planes could not have brought down the towers and that the Americans must, therefore, have planted explosives inside the towers.
Ahmadi-nejad ignored all evidence otherwise, including the public announcement by the late leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, boasting of his responsibility for collapsing the towers.
The Al-Qaeda attack on Ahmadi-nejad appeared in an English-language magazine, Inspire, published by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as part of its effort to attract English-speaking Muslims to engage in violent attacks on the West.
The magazine was edited by Samir Khan, who was killed last week in the American missile attack in Yemen targeted against Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Both men were American passport holders and fluent English-speakers.
The article in Inspire called Ahmadi-nejad’s grand theory “ridiculous” and said it “stands in face of all logic and evidence.”
The article, which Samir Khan is believed to have written, calls Iran’s opposition to the United States phony, presumably geared just to fool Arab radicals into supporting Iran.
“If Iran was genuine in its animosity towards the US, it would be pleased to see another entity striking a blow at the Great Satan but that’s not the case,” the article says. “For Iran, anti-Americanism is merely a game of politics. For them, Al-Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world.”
The article made clear that the movement looked down on Shia. “Iran and the Shia in general do not want to give Al-Qaeda credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip service jihad against the Great Satan.”
Bin Laden praised the 9/11 attacks in many taped messages. In 2004, he publicly proclaimed Al-Qaeda’s role in the attacks and in 2006 asserted his personal responsibility for them.
