WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda’s relationship with Iran’s government has been fractious at best and openly antagonistic at worst, according to documents confiscated from Osama bin Laden’s hideout.    

On occasion, Iranian authorities promised to release, and may have actually released, al Qaeda figures and family members.

But at other times, the documents suggest, Iran and Al Qaeda were engaged in what could almost be characterised as tit-for-tat hostage taking.

“The documents suggest that the relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran was antagonistic, dominated by indirect negotiations over the release of jihadis and their families detained in Iran,” said Lieutenant Colonel Liam Collins, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point.

According to the West Point study, al Qaeda considered Iran as an alternative base for its activities after the US attacked its Afghanistan safe havens in late 2001.

The study noted that a senior deputy to bin Laden, Saif al-Adl, suggested in public writings that al Qaeda had established contact with supporters in Iran affiliated with Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.