Bin Laden files ‘will rewrite history of Iraq War’, conference told

WASHINGTON, Arab News, 19 November 2017 –  Newly released files from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan will rewrite the history of the Iraq War, a conference in Washington has heard.
The Al-Qaeda leader “received constant audio reports from Iraqi commanders. They were eyeing Syria years before 2011,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Joscelyn was speaking at an FDD event to discuss the implications of the 470,000 bin Laden files — records, images, audio, and videos — recovered from his compound when he was killed in May 2011 and released this month by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Panelists discussed the relationship between Al-Qaeda’s central leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan and its affiliates across the Middle East. They said Al-Qaeda “central” under the leadership of bin Laden maintained much closer operational control over affiliated terrorist organizations, which were previously thought to have a great degree of independence.
The panel also said the new files confirmed what had been known and publicized by US intelligence agencies for many years regarding Al-Qaeda’s ties to Iran.
It was the assessment of US intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Treasury Department under the Obama administration that there was an agreement between Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime that allowed the terror group to maintain a “core facilitation pipeline inside Iran,” Joscelyn said.
He also cited a Treasury Department document related to a terrorist designation in 2011 that said that the Department was targeting “key funding and support networks using Iran as a critical transit point.”
“There’s resistance for policy reasons to show Iran’s cooperation with Al Qaeda — politicization has gone both ways. We’re not trying to justify any war, but rather report on facts to understand our enemy,” Joscelyn said.
Rukmini Callimachi, foreign correspondent for The New York Times, said that contrary to the popular perception at the time of bin Laden’s death, the files confirmed what she observed during her work in Mali.
“There’s not just connective tissue, but connective tissue to the point of micro-management showing decisions made from thousands of miles away,” she said.
“These are local groups with local grievances, but when you become part of this Al-Qaeda brand, your grievances and targets become global.”
Panelists also discussed the role of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
Bill Roggio, also an FDD senior fellow, said: “The US military has whitewashed the role of Shia militias in Iraq. Key groups in the PMU are openly hostile to the US and some have stated they’ll overthrow the Iraqi government if Iran calls for it.”