U.S. links Iran to al-Qaeda

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Donald Trump administration is laying broad legal grounds for a military strike on Iran, including tying Iran to al-Qaeda, the armed Islamic extremist group.

According to the U.S. daily, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in recent public and classified testimony to Congress, asserted that there are ties between Iran and al-Qaeda. “Such a relationship would seem to provide the foundation for military action against Iran under the 2001 congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the al-Qaeda attacks that year,” the newspaper said.

The Democratic Party has expressed strong concerns over such moves. The Washington Post quoted an anonymous Democratic congressional aide as saying, “We’re very concerned the administration hasn’t categorically said Congress hasn’t authorized war with Iran.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his cabinet that his country’s level of uranium enrichment “will no longer be 3.67 percent.” Iran promised to keep its uranium enrichment level to 3.67 percent when it signed a nuclear agreement with the West in July 2015. Therefore, a higher enrichment level is viewed as a prelude to nuclear weapons development. The Iranian president stressed that if Europe fails to implement its promise on starting trade and financial transactions with Iran as agreed, Tehran will reverse its heavy water reactor to the pre-nuclear accord conditions.


jyr0101@donga.com