The attacks of 9/11 may seem now to be in the far-distant past. But in large part because the ideology, intent, and key role of the Islamic Republic of Iran were never addressed in full or confronted, that regime continues to foment chaos and terror across the Middle East and beyond. This essay will therefore address that missing account and suggest policy for the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump that can begin to hold Tehran’s regime responsible for its involvement in that fateful day.
Before 9/11
A brief review of some important developments pre-9/11 will help us set the scene.
As laid out in extensive detail in the Havlish vs Usama Bin Laden et al. legal case that concluded in December 2011, Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York Federal District Court ruled that Iran and Hezbollah were co-responsible with al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. I co-authored one of the affidavits for the case together with Dr. Bruce Tefft. That affidavit traced the history of the Iran-Hezbollah-al-Qaeda jihad relationship. Multiple other affidavits added further context and information to the case, which was brought initially shortly after 9/11 by a group of widows of those lost on 9/11.
The Iranian constitution states clearly in its introduction that the regime is an Islamic one, ideologically dedicated to expanding the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution outward. The role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) likewise is dedicated not just to defense of Iran’s own borders, but to “fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s path; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.” This ideological mission is what drives the Iranian regime to sponsorship of Islamic terror. That both Shi’ite and Sunni doctrine hold jihad – that is, warfare against the non-Muslim – to be the highest obligation of Islam is what allows the Iranian regime and its Hezbollah proxies to collaborate in jihad warfare with Sunni terrorists including al-Qaeda.
The Birth of al-Qaeda
This may bring us to the jihad alliance forged among Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, as described in our affidavit. As the decade-long war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Red Army drew to a close in late 1988-early 1989, Usama bin Laden (UBL) and Saudi fighters who’d participated in the war sought to return home to Saudi Arabia. Remember, there was yet no al-Qaeda, but Saudi fighters were coalescing around bin Laden, as he had provided substantial financial support for them and others during the war. King Fahd, then on the throne in Riyadh, however, was having none of it. Despite the looming threat from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at the time, Fahd denied UBL’s offer of his Afghanistan fighters to help in the defense of Saudi Arabia.
Looking elsewhere, then, bin Laden and his men found a welcome mat in Sudan. Omar al-Bashir and his Muslim Brotherhood ally, Hassan al-Turabi, offered safe haven to bin Laden and his fighters. By late 1990, al-Bashir and bin Laden’s men had organized a kind of Jihad Jamboree, inviting jihadis from all over the Islamic world to Khartoum for a strategy planning session that would unite Sunnis and Shi’ites in an alliance against the West.
At the Party
In addition to UBL and Ayman al-Zawahiri, among those who attended were representatives of Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and many of the top leaders of the Iranian regime. These latter included Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, and IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai. While there, UBL asked Rafsanjani if his Hezbollah cadres could train bin Laden’s fighters on how to conduct big building vehicle-borne suicide bombings, such as Hezbollah had carried out against the US and French Embassies and the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. Rafsanjani agreed and assigned Hezbollah terror chieftain Imad Mughniyeh to the job. Iran has provided substantial material assistance to Hezbollah in the form of arming, funding and training from the time of its formation in the early 1980s through to the current time, and did so as well for the establishment of training camps in Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, and elsewhere.
The 1990s
The results were not long in coming. While al-Qaeda operatives carried out suicide bombings at Khobar Towers in 1996, the US Embassies in Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi in 1998, and against the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000, it was Hezbollah that had trained them and the Iranian regime that facilitated the attacks. Imad Mughniyeh was at the time the senior terror chieftain for Hezbollah and operated under direct command-and-control of the Iranian regime by way of the IRGC and its subordinate unit, the Quds Force. Major General Qassem Suleimani commanded the Quds Force from 1997 until his assassination on orders of then-President Trump in January 2020, meaning that he was Iran’s Quds Force commander at the time of the 9/11 attacks.
The early 1990s were formative years for both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which coalesced into organized groups at this time. By 1995, UBL and later Ayman al-Zawahiri had returned to Afghanistan and pledged bay’ah (allegiance) to the Taliban commander, Mullah Omar. Then, in 1996, bin Laden issued the first of two Declarations of jihad against America and the West. Jihad was not well-understood by US national security agencies (then or now); neither was bin Laden understood as the emerging leader of al-Qaeda. As a result, the warnings went unheeded. The second declaration of jihad was issued in 1998, but still the US and the West did not understand what it was up against. But the Iranian regime, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Taliban were already deep into planning for what would become the 9/11 plot.
The 9/11 Plot
As noted in the “9/11 Commission Report” (but without naming him specifically), Hezbollah’s terror chief, Imad Mughniyeh, traveled to Saudi Arabia in October 2000 to recruit the 9/11 muscle hijackers. He then accompanied them on flights to and from Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. These hijackers went to Iran in particular for 9/11 planning and training. That training included their first introduction to flight instruction on simulators acquired by the Iranian intelligence service (Ministry of Intelligence and Security, MOIS) in east Asia. Eight to 14 of these Saudi hijackers were facilitated in this way by the Iranian regime prior to 9/11.
According to another of the affidavits in our Havlish legal case, written by Janice Kephart, by agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a mark (whose exact description remains classified) was placed in their Saudi passports that would be recognized by Iranian border personnel, who would then not stamp those passports with entry stamps into Iran. This ensured on this and subsequent trips that those Saudi hijackers’ passports would remain “clean,” so that eventually they would be able to obtain US visas in Saudi Arabia before flying to the US later in 2001.
Ahmad Shah Massoud
Another important aspect of the Iran-AQ collaboration prior to 9/11 is the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary military commander of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, who’d led the fight against the Taliban and was a key ally of the US. He was assassinated just days before 9/11 by two Tunisian al-Qaeda operatives who’d been assisted by the Iranian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium to obtain counterfeit Belgian passports which they used to enter Afghanistan under the guise of journalists to interview Massoud. His loss, as intended, removed a key ally of the US who would have joined forces with the US post-9/11 to confront AQ and the Taliban.
Post-9/11
Iranian regime material support to terrorism did not end with 9/11. After the US/NATO responded to the 9/11 attacks by taking down Taliban control in Afghanistan and sending al-Qaeda fleeing from Tora Bora, UBL, Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQ fighters and families, found safehaven in Iran from late 2001 until mid-2010, when they moved to Abbottabad, Pakistan. Their flight across the border from Herat Province, Afghanistan into Iran was facilitated by the former Governor of Herat Province, Khirullah Said Wali Khairhwa, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his group, Hizbi-I Islami. Al-Qa’eda leadership’s Shura Council subsequently operated from inside Iran under the full protection of the Iranian regime. In collaboration with the Iranian regime, AQ continued post-2001 to coordinate and carry out terror attacks against the US and other Western countries’ interests across the world. This again underscores the significance of the personal relationships forged by AQ leaders (especially Ayman al-Zawahiri) with senior Iranian intelligence officers.
The Lessons
Why does this review of the 9/11 story matter now?
The first lesson is that US and Western leadership, especially in the national security arena, still to this day have not studied or learned the fundamentals of Islamic doctrine, history, law, or scripture. As it is these fundamentals that drive the behavior of the Iranian regime to this day – its sponsorship of Islamic terror proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and the Houthis, as well as its pursuit of deliverable nuclear weapons specifically targeted against Israel and the US – it would seem of critical importance to understand the motivation and intent of that regime. That neither Iran nor Hezbollah has ever been held to account for their central role in the 9/11 attacks certainly must feed a sense of invulnerability that fuels continuing attacks against us.
Next, we need to look at Afghanistan…again. Some of the very same elements that collaborated in the 9/11 attacks are once again gathering strength in Afghanistan, now again under Taliban control. AQ, the Taliban, and warlord allies such as the Haqqanis once more are consolidating control and threatening jihad. The more recent foothold within Afghanistan by the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) adds yet another jihadi element to the mix, although the Taliban treats IS-K as a rival for power.
Iranian regime involvement in Afghanistan currently is not evident, although neither was it pre-9/11. AQ has not officially named a successor to Ayman al-Zawahiri, killed in Kabul in 2022, but Seif al-Adl, formerly AQ’s military commander, effectively now acts as the overall leader of al-Qaeda and continues to operate from inside Iran. Afghan resistance forces, one of them led by Ahmad Shah Massoud’s son, Ahmad Massoud, battle against the Taliban, but with little to no recognition or support from the US or others in the West.
Conclusion
Israel and the US are focused on chaos across the Middle East, in Gaza, Lebanon, and Judea/Samaria with a fast-moving Turkish-backed military offensive that has taken down the rule of Bashar al-Assad in Syria as of this writing. Afghanistan is not at the forefront of attention right now, but Israeli operations against Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah have seriously degraded the capabilities of both of those. The January 2025 return of Donald Trump to the White House presages likely changes in US policy, particularly in the Middle East, vis-à-vis Israel and most particularly with regard to Iran. Challenges there will remain, no matter the course of events in Lebanon and Syria, making it more important than ever that incoming senior US leadership, especially at the National Security Council (NSC), Defense and State Departments, and the White House itself understand the driving motivations of the Iranian regime leadership.
It must be recognized that those motivations are driven by ideological beliefs that may not conform to Western ideas about rational behavior. If we define “rational” as placing the survival of the nation and people above all other values, it is not at all clear that the Iranian regime leadership, from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down the ranks of the IRGC and Quds Force, actually do value the nation and the people of Iran more than they do the Islamic ideological drivers so specifically defined in their constitution. We’ll recall that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his time said:
We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.
And for a regime driving to a deliverable nuclear weapons status, that is indeed a sobering consideration.
Clare M. Lopez is the Founder and President of Lopez Liberty LLC and was an Expert Witness in the Havlish vs Usama bin Laden et al. legal case.
