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The Hamas-Al-Qaeda Alliance

(Weekly Standard) Jonathan Schanzer - In the early and mid-1990s Hamas members received paramilitary training and attended Islamist conferences in Sudan, alongside bin Laden and his supporters. A decade later, bin Laden reportedly sent emissaries to Hamas on two separate occasions (September 2000 and January 2001). In 2002, the Washington Post quoted official U.S. government sources as confirming a loose alliance "between al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hizbullah." In 2003, Israel arrested three Hamas fighters returning from al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. That same year, Jordanian security officials confirmed to Time magazine that two Hamas members went on a recruiting mission in Afghanistan hoping to bring al-Qaeda fighters back to the Palestinian territories. In 2006, Syria-based Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal met in Yemen with Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, whom the U.S. Treasury officially designated as a terrorist in 2004 for his ties to al-Qaeda. Zindani openly boasted of providing funds to Hamas. Thus, over the course of two decades, Hamas has maintained a relationship with the al-Qaeda network. The writer, a former intelligence analyst at the U.S. Treasury, is vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2011-05-03 00:00:00
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