Initially Osama bin Laden wanted to fight the Crusaders (NATO) and the Indians, and not the Muslim Apostates i.e. the Muslim leaders who were cooperating with the Crusaders, for example the Saudi King and the Egyptian President, who at the time was Hozni Mubarack.
That changed when the Saudi King invited the Americans in the Persian Gulf in 1991, in order to fight Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and had taken its oil fields, having also “parked” his army at the Saudi borders near the Saudi oil fields. Then Al-Qaeda started cooperating with the Iranians against the Saudi King. We could assume that many people in Saudi Arabia wanted a closer cooperation with China, which was the new big customer in the Persian Gulf. Or maybe they just found a chance to fight the Saudi King. After all there is a war inside the Royal family of Saudi Arabia. See “The Hezbollah-Al Qaeda Axis”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/the-hezbollah-al-qaeda-axis/
See also “The Assassination of the Saudi King in 1975”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/the-assassination-of-the-saudi-king-in-1975/
Osama bin Laden was no longer welcome in Saudi Arabia, and he was exiled in 1992. He went to Sudan, the stronger Iranian ally at the time. Iran and Sudan also have the same political system i.e. they are both socialist Islamic countries. In 1994 the Saudis will revoke Osama bin Laden’s citizenship, and in 1996 the Sudanese will ask Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to leave Sudan, and bin Laden will go to Afghanistan.
I used to think that the reason the Sudanese asked bin Laden to leave their country was because they were afraid of the Americans. But I was probably wrong. After all the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania only happened in 1998.
It had probably more to do with the fight between the Taliban and the Iranian proxies in Afghanistan. And the Taliban were Osama bin Laden’s allies. The Iranians and Al-Qaeda were jointly fighting the Saudi King and the Americans, but they were fighting on opposite side in Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia said she did not want Osama bin Laden extradited to Saudi Arabia, because an imprisoned Osama bin Laden could upset the Saudi people, because Osama bin Laden was a hero of the Afghanistan war. While this might be true, there is another reason the Saudis would prefer bin Laden in Afghanistan. For the Saudis it was important that Osama was not in Saudi Arabia, but if he was in Afghanistan he would not cause much problems for the Saudis, and he would prevent the Americans from sending the oil and gas of Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. And the same was true for Iran.
And indeed with the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the 9/11 attack, Al-Qaeda sabotaged the US-Taliban negotiations and the construction of the Central Asian pipelines, both under the Clinton and Bush administrations, and did a favor to both the Saudis and the Iranians.
Therefore if you want to understand Al-Qaeda you should not try to see it as a Saudi or as an Iranian terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda received huge amounts from Saudi donors, but it was trained by the Iranians. Obviously the reason was that Al-Qaeda was fighting the Saudi King, and therefore the Saudi government would not provide Al-Qaeda with assistance, at least not in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Qaeda was also fighting the Americans, and therefore Pakistan would not be able to help Al-Qaeda because the Americans would be very angry with Pakistan. Of course the Pakistanis provided some indirect support to Al-Qaeda, through their support to the Taliban, because the Afghan Taliban were an ally of Pakistan, and the Taliban were an ally of Al-Qaeda. But Pakistan could not support Al-Qaeda attacks against the United States, because it was receiving billions in American and Saudi aid. See “Pakistan Between Al-Qaeda and USA”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/pakistan-between-al-qaeda-and-usa/
Therefore against the Saudi King and the Americans, Iran and its close allies Sudan and Hezbollah were the ideal partners for Al-Qaeda, even though in Afghanistan Al-Qaeda was probably supported by the Saudi King against the Iranians. Remember that terrorism is the Islamic and socialist way of doing business. That’s how socialists and Islamists close their deals.
You should see Al-Qaeda as a sum of gangs, who are loosely connected. These groups are guns for hire, and they are used by the Islamic oil cartel.
The cooperation between Al-Qaeda, a Saudi terror group, and Iran, seems strange, but remember that their interests overlap in Africa, in South Eastern Asia, and in Central Asia. They have opposite interests in Syria and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, but there is a lot of space for cooperation between them.
Therefore you should see Al-Qaeda as a terror group that protects the Islamic oil cartel from the “Crusaders”, but which is also very active in the internal wars of the Islamic oil cartel.
Now the Islamic oil cartel is threatened by the huge increases in the American oil and natural gas production, and it cooperates with the Communist oil cartel of Latin American too (Venezuela, Bolivia). The Communist oil cartel also finances Cuba, another Communist country, and therefore Cuba is also part of this unholy alliance between the Islamic and the Communist oil cartels. Very often the Russians join the cartel against the Americans too. Monsters like the Jewish Communist Bernie Sanders, the extremely pro-Islamist Jeremy Corbyn in Enlgand, Pablo Iglesias of Podemos in Spain, Alexis Tsipras in Greece, are supported by the unholy alliance between the Islamic and the Communist oil cartel. See “The Financing of Hollywood’s Socialist Propaganda”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/the-financing-of-hollywoods-socialist-propaganda/
Israel has traditionally been at the center of Al-Qaeda’s propaganda. But the truth is that Israel is not very important for Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is simply using Israel to demonize the United States. In the past Al-Qaeda has attacked some synagogues outside Israel, in order to take the credit of the war against the Jews, but it has avoided attacks within Israel, which would need a much greater amount of effort and money, because the Israelis spend their day thinking about terrorism.
Remember that a large part of Al-Qaeda’s financing comes from the Saudis, and Saudis are not interested in natural gas, because they are not as rich as the Russians, the Iranians and the Qataris in natural gas. The Saudis consume domestically their gas production. For the Saudis it is oil that makes the difference. And Israel is not very important for the oil industry.
Since the 1980’s the oil pipelines started losing their geopolitical importance, wherever there was easy access to the sea, because tankers became much larger, and as a result the transport of oil became much cheaper. Therefore the Saudis did not have to take suffer the terrorist attacks of the Egyptians, the Iraqis and the Syrians against their Trans-Arabian pipeline, which carried their oil to the Mediterranean Sea through Jordan and Lebanon.
Map Trans-Arabian Pipeline
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Tapline.png
Actually when the Israelis gained control of the Golan Heights during the 1967 War, a small part of the pipeline was under Israeli control. But of course the Israelis did not create any problems to Saudi Arabia.
In 1976 Saudi Arabia stopped the Trans-Arabian pipeline. It only left the part to Jordan, to have influence in Jordan. Egypt was now an American ally, and Saudi Arabia could count on the Suez Canal. Probably the Saudis wanted to support the Egyptians too, in order to have them as allies after many years of rivalry between the two countries. Gamal Nasser was fighting Saudi Arabia for decades. See “The Intra-Arab War for Oil : 1950-1970”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/the-intra-arab-oil-war-1950-1970/
Moreover in 1982 Saudi Arabia finished its East-West Pipeline (Petroline) which sent Saudi oil to the Red Sea.
Map East West Petroline
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/saudi_arabia-oil_gas_infrastructure-2014.png
Contrary to what happens with oil, it is very expensive to carry natural gas with ships, because you need special ships, and also because the process of liquefaction and regazification are very expensive. And that’s why from the wars for the railroads we went to the wars for the oil pipelines in the 20th century, and in the 21st century we see the wars for the natural gas pipelines. But note that when there is no easy access to sea oil pipelines are very important too. Or when there are competing oil pipelines. What happens in Syria has to do with natural gas, and what happens in Iraq has more to do with oil.
Iran, Turkey and Qatar are very interested in natural gas pipelines, and therefore they are more interested in Israel, and that’s why Turkey and Qatar control Hamas (Muslim Brotherhood) in Gaza, and Iran controls Hezbollah at the borders of Israel and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda receives a lot of Saudi financing, and for Saudi Arabia natural gas is not important.
The presence of Hamas in Gaza and of Hezbollah in Lebanon make things even worse for Al-Qaeda, because neither Turkey and Qatar, nor Iran, want to see Al-Qaeda establishing a presence there. Because if Al-Qaeda was to go there it would also claim influence over the local populations.
Therefore Israel is not financially important for Al-Qaeda, and Al-Qaeda prefers to attack cheap targets outside Israel, like synagogues. These targets do not cost much, and Al-Qaeda avoids problems with Hamas and Hezbollah by not interfering in Gaza and South Lebanon.
But for Turkey, Qatar and Iran Israel is very important, and therefore Hamas and Hezbollah spend a significant part of their day thinking about Israel, and Israel in turn spends a significant part of its day thinking about Hezbollah and Hamas.
