One of the most misunderstood aspects of terrorism financing is Shia Iran’s support for Sunni Jihadist organizations.
Some naive observers still insist that Iran would never support Sunni organizations and that Sunni organizations would never ally with Iran.
The reality is quite to the contrary. Iran has longstanding ties to numerous Sunni Jihadist organizations, the most apparent being HAMAS.
HAMAS is of course the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, which illustrates that Iran has usually had good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood since the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s. In fact, one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological godfathers was Sayid Qutb. Islamic Iran’s original supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, was a big admirer of Qutb. He named a postage stamp and a main thoroughfare in Tehran after Qutb.
Earlier this year, as the Muslim Brotherhood took control of Egypt, HAMAS became more dependent on the new regime in Cairo, along with its benefactors in Qatar, and less dependent on the oil-rich Iranians. But now that the Muslim Brotherhood has been swept from power in Egypt, HAMAS has once again looked to Iran for financial backing. Here are two news articles on the subject:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/with-morsi-gone-hamas-turns-back-to-iran-for-aid/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4432548,00.html
