Oi, Ahmadinejad! 9/11 was us, says angry al-Qaeda

IRANIAN president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not only a thorn in the side of America, it seems he is getting on the wick of the top brass at al-Qaeda too, thanks to his "ridiculous" claims about the 9/11 attacks.
 
Last week Ahmadinejad prompted a walkout among Western diplomats at the UN by making a speech in which he suggested Osama bin Laden had been killed by the US so they could cover up the truth about the attacks on the World Trade Center. In the past he has also described the accepted version of events as a "big fabrication" and said the attacks were used to justify wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
But it's not just the West that is upset by his claims. Al-Qaeda, the terror group that claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, is none too pleased that the leader of Iran is casting aspersions on their credentials by suggesting that they were not behind the atrocity.
 
In the latest edition of al-Qaeda's Yemen-based magazine, Inspire, a clearly put-out leader writer harrumphs: "The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 but rather, the US government... So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?"
 
The reason could be religion. Al-Qaeda has a largely Sunni Muslim support while the population of Iran is mainly Shia. As a result, the two do not see eye-to-eye and since Ahmadinejad came to power they have tried to outdo each other in their anti-Americanism.
 
The al-Qaeda-supporting journalist obviously thinks his boys are doing a better job. He (or possibly she) describes Iran as "a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world," but insists that al-Qaeda "succeeded where Iran couldn't. Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories."
 
The angry author even questions Ahmadinejad's motives in attacking the West, thundering: "For Iran, anti-Americanism is merely a game of politics. It is anti-America when it suits it and it is a collaborator with the US when it suits it." Ouch. ·