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Al-Qaida Tells Iran: Stop Promoting Sept. 11 Conspiracy Theories

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. last week.
Timothy A. Clary
/
AFP/Getty Images
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. last week.

The latest issue of Inspire, an English-language magazinebelieved to be produced by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, chastises the Iranian government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular for spreading "conspiracy theories surrounding the events of 9/11."

"The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the U.S. government," the magazine writes, according to a pdf copy posted by the website publicintelligence.net.

"So we may ask the question," the essay continues. "Why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?"

The writer also says Iran is waging only a "lip-service jihad against the Great Satan [the U.S.]."

Just last week at the United Nations, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. of using "the mysterious Sept. 11 incident as a pretext to attack Afghanistan and Iraq."

(H/T to ABC News' The Blotter.)

Note: NPR follows Associated Press style on the spelling of al-Qaida.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott
Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.