Sunni al Qaeda doesn't have a relationship with Shia Iran, right? ABC reports:
Al Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim group that has a complicated, sometimes tense, relationship with Iran.
The United States has a complicated, sometimes tense, relationship with France, but that doesn't mean we won't go over and liberate Paris when the place is overrun with Germans. It is an odd way to describe the relationship, but then the piece makes it sound like Iran and al Qaeda are pretty close--which is an odd case for a mainstream media outlet to make:
The fate of these al Qaeda operatives has been one of the most intriguing mysteries in the war on terror. Shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, al Qaeda's central leadership broke into two groups. U.S. intelligence believes that one group, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, fled to the east to find safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas. The second group, headed by an Egyptian named Saif al Adel, went west to Iran. This second group, which intelligence analysts say includes al Qaeda's management council, or "shura," includes about two dozen militants, including Adel, al Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith and some of bin Laden's relatives, including two of his sons, Saad and Hamza. Although U.S. officials rarely talk publicly about them, these militants are considered to be among the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Adel is on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists and is a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The State Department has put a $5 million bounty on his head through the Rewards for Justice program; the only al Qaeda figures with higher bounties are Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Zawahiri. Iranian authorities detained these militants in 2003, and they have been under what one U.S. official called "loose house arrest" in Iran ever since. The U.S. government quietly sent messages to Iran through the Swiss government, requesting that the al Qaeda figures be turned over to their native countries for interrogation and trial. Iran has refused. In the past, the Iranians have also resisted efforts by al Qaeda to get the militants released. But recently there has been a renewed effort by al Qaeda to negotiate for their release and signs that the Iranians are willing to at least talk about that.
So Iran is ne