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Iran Hosting and Protecting Al-Qaeda Leadership, Says UK

(The National-UAE) Damien McElroy - Intelligence officials in the UK believe that Iran is hosting the headquarters of al-Qaeda, giving the terrorist leadership a lifeline. Parliament's security and intelligence committee reported, "Being based in Iran has allowed [al-Qaeda] to retain some oversight of franchises internationally, creating a complex intelligence landscape, as Iran is a less accessible environment for the West than other parts of the Middle East - which, in turn, may have increased the [al-Qaeda] threat." The committee said that Richard Moore, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), "told us, the Iranian regime has been 'extremely pragmatic for many years in terms of the partners it will enlist, if they are prepared to work against its common enemies in the shape of the United States, the West, Israel in particular.'" Committee chairman Lord Beamish said, "Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests. As the committee was told, Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with." He said Iranian interference in the UK ranged from infiltration, espionage and cyber attacks to direct threat to lives within Britain. The committee found that between the beginning of 2022 and August 2023, there had been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap of British nationals or UK residents by Iran.
2025-07-13 00:00:00
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