AHC: Al-Qaida targets Iran instead of the USA

Challenge: With a POD after 1980, have Al-Qaida commit acts of terrorism towards Iranian targets instead of American targets, yet still be well known.
 
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Iran almost invaded Afghanistan in the 1990's.

If it had done so, I could see al Qaeda going after Iran to save the Taliban. The rest of the world would watch in amazement as the most radical Islamic groups kill each other. al Qaeda would be famous by participating in this hilarious conundrum.
 
Killing fellow muslims is against the rules of Islam. It's much, much easier to justify going after godless communists or The Great Satan, or whatever.

Ya, theres lots of friction between Sunni and Shiia, and occasional fighting. But to declare jihad?

Theyd lose all their support from Saudi for instance. Theyre not that stupid.
 
I dunno, Even though both the Pashtuns and Hazaras are Sunni and Shia Muslim, that didn't stop the former from persecuting and killing the latter.
 
Killing fellow muslims is against the rules of Islam. It's much, much easier to justify going after godless communists or The Great Satan, or whatever.

Ya, theres lots of friction between Sunni and Shiia, and occasional fighting. But to declare jihad?

Theyd lose all their support from Saudi for instance. Theyre not that stupid.

I'm sorry but this is patently false. Heretically followers of a false branch of Islam is far worse than non-believers.

As mentioned above, Iranian intervention in Afghanistan is the best bet. But in that conflict AQ would be small potatoes compared to how Pakistan proper would react.
 
After the United States invaded and occuppied Iraq, Al Qaeda standard operating procedure in Iraq was massacring as many Shia Muslims as possible.

A typical headline would be "Shia Festival/Pilgrimage Site Targeted By Attack Hundreds Dead" and the attack would be by al qaeda.

I remember reading that it was noted that a likely Al Qaeda goal in Iraq was stirring up a civil war of sorts between Sunni and Shia.


NYT item on Al Qaeda discomfort with Hezbollah, http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/26haykel.html

excerpt,
.....
Al Qaeda’s Sunni ideology regards Shiites as heretics and profoundly distrusts Shiite groups like Hezbollah. It was Al Qaeda that is reported to have given Sunni extremists in Iraq the green light to attack Shiite civilians and holy sites. A Qaeda recruiter I met in Yemen described the Shiites as “dogs and a thorn in the throat of Islam from the beginning of time.”

But now Hezbollah has taken the lead on the most incendiary issue for jihadis of all stripes: the fight against Israel.

Many Sunnis are therefore rallying to Hezbollah’s side, including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan. The Saudi cleric Salman al-Awda has defied his government’s anti-Hezbollah position, writing on his Web site that “this is not the time to express our differences with the Shiites because we are all confronted by our greater enemy, the criminal Jews and Zionists.”

For Al Qaeda, it is a time of panic. The group’s Web sites are abuzz with messages and questions about how to respond to Hezbollah’s success. One sympathizer asks whether, even knowing that the Shiites are traitors and the accomplices of the infidel Americans in Iraq, it is permissible to say a prayer for Hezbollah. He is told to curse Hezbollah along with Islam’s other enemies.

Several of Al Qaeda’s ideologues have issued official statements explaining Hezbollah’s actions and telling followers how to respond to them. The gist of their argument is that the Shiites are conspiring to destroy Islam and to resuscitate Persian imperial rule over the Middle East and ultimately the world. The ideologues label this effort the “Sassanian-Safavid conspiracy,” in reference to the Sassanians, a pre-Islamic Iranian dynasty, and to the Safavids, a Shiite dynasty that ruled Iran and parts of Iraq from 1501 till 1736.

They go on to argue that thanks to the United States (the leader of the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy), Iraq has been handed over to the Shiites, who are now wantonly massacring the country’s Sunnis. Syria is already led by a Shiite heretic, President Bashar al-Assad, whose policies harm the country’s Sunni majority.

Hezbollah, according to these analyses, seeks to dupe ordinary Muslims into believing that the Shiites are defending Islam’s holiest cause, Palestine, in order to cover for the wholesale Shiite alliance with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.
.....
 
Iran almost invaded Afghanistan in the 1990's.

If it had done so, I could see al Qaeda going after Iran to save the Taliban. The rest of the world would watch in amazement as the most radical Islamic groups kill each other. al Qaeda would be famous by participating in this hilarious conundrum.

That was my first thought. Could also see Hezbollah taking time off from taking on Israel to back up their Iranian allies against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
 

amphibulous

Banned
AQ has no problem in killing "heretic" Muslims - in fact, most of its victims are Muslim.

But you have to remember why it attacked the US so spectaularly: a belief that the US would easily be provoked into engaging in A'stan, which AQ hoped would destabilize Pakistan, bleed the US dry of money and will, and alienate the US from the Muslim world, forcing the Saud family to order US troops out of Saudi Arabia. I.e. strategically AQ is VERY competent; they're not going to stage an attack on Iran with a WTC type profile without good reason. Oh - and you have to remember that the Iranians are better strategists than the Bush government and won't be led by the nose either.
 
Iran almost invaded Afghanistan in the 1990's.

If it had done so, I could see al Qaeda going after Iran to save the Taliban. The rest of the world would watch in amazement as the most radical Islamic groups kill each other. al Qaeda would be famous by participating in this hilarious conundrum.

On the brightside this may do something to kill that horrible "all muslims agree about everything" meme that filters through the popular consciousness.
 

amphibulous

Banned
Challenge: With a POD after 1980, have Al-Qaida commit acts of terrorism towards Iranian targets instead of American targets, yet still be well known.

..Attacking targets outside the West and becoming well known requires something special. I can see four options

1. A massive number of deaths: eg AQ sets up a chemical plant to Bhopal

2. They get the Iranian government

3. They interfere with oil supplies through Hormuz, either directly or through provoking an Iranian reaction

4. They sabotage the Iranian bomb project
 
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