USA accuses Iran of Backing al-Qaeda

US Inexplicably Accuses Iran of Backing al-Qaeda in Syria

Still Slamming Iran for Supporting Assad

by Jason Ditz, 

When the Obama Administration is criticizing Iran about Syria, it’s usually to do with putative weapons shipments to the Assad government, and usually is followed with griping about Iraq constantly searching Iranian planes and not finding those weapons.

The latest allegation takes the cake though, as the Treasury Department is accusing Iran of “assisting al-Qaeda” in sending jihadist fighters to Syria to attack the Assad government.

The allegation seems to center around a single “facilitator” who purportedly lives along the Iran-Afghan border and has provided passports to al-Qaeda recruits, with the assumption that they’re being used to flock to Syria, and with the added assumption that Iran is letting them do so.

That the Assad government is literally Iran’s closest ally on the planet and that al-Qaeda is openly hostile to Iran’s Shi’ite government are both unchanged, and of course that means Iran backing al-Qaeda against Syria is literally the last thing they’d do. The Treasury Department didn’t reconcile that fact with anything, but rather just stated the allegation, like so many others, as a matter of course.

http://news.antiwar.com/2014/02/09/us-inexplicably-accuses-iran-of-backing-al-qaeda-in-syria/