The assassination of Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah in Tehran apparently served mainly American interests, but the proactive publication of the operation serves an Israeli interest.
One key question surrounding the assassination of senior al-Qaeda operative, Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah, remains open: why the incident has only just been announced.
Documentation of the assassination of al-Baghdadi, a senior ISIS figure, in 2019
There is no doubt that advertising in the New York Times was initiated.
The article is laden with precise details, intended to dispel in advance the denials of Iran and al-Qaeda.
The person who provided the information wanted not only to hint at an elimination made in the dark, but to convey a message that would resonate throughout the area.
This message is intended for a number of factors.
Al-Qaeda, of course, had another senior member killed, and on the 22nd anniversary of the organization's terrorist attacks at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania;
To Iran, which has been exposed as hosting on its soil a senior member of an organization that is supposed to be its bitter ideological and religious enemy;
And to every other radical factor in the region, that regardless of Corona and the domestic political troubles, the United States and Israel continue to join hands in the war on terror.
According to foreign publications, the collaboration is not unusual.
It has been done many times before.
The connection between the professional elements in the Mossad and the Armed Forces with their American counterparts is deep. This is true in intelligence exchanges, and for the past 15 years this has also been true in various operational issues. The two most prominent examples are Operation Olympic Games, in which the Staxent computer worm was introduced. Iranian and disrupted its operation for many months, and the assassination of Hezbollah's military commander, Imad Murnia, in Damascus in 2008.
Such a collaboration apparently took place this time as well.
It seems that the Americans provided the intelligence, and the Israeli institution the execution.
This indicates that the Americans do not have a good enough operational infrastructure in Iran: they also eliminated the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani, in Iraq.
The institution, however, has demonstrated in the last decade (according to foreign publications) an impressive operational capability on Iranian soil - from the elimination of several nuclear scientists in the same way of firing by motorcyclists using pistols with silencers, to an explosion in June this year at the Natanz centrifuge plant.
In all these cases it was alleged that the institution acted through other elements, emissaries who performed the work for it.
This is a well-known method in the worlds of intelligence, which the institution is also likely to use in order to reduce the risk to its people.
And yet, the institution's involvement in the liquidation is not self-evident.
Abdullah - or as he is known: Abu Muhammad al-Masri - was involved in planning the attacks against Israeli targets in Kenya in 2002, but the declared Israeli policy is not to carry out assassinations in retaliation, but to prevent future attacks.
Although Israel has claimed that Abdullah has been involved in planning attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, the likelihood is low given that al-Qaeda - which has struggled for years to carry out resounding attacks - focuses its efforts on fighting moderate Americans and Sunni regimes in the region, not Israel.
It is more likely that Israel gave a shoulder to its senior partner (despite the fear that it would put itself in the sights of the organization, which would seek revenge).
This has a clear operational value, but also a significant deterrent value.
Towards al-Qaeda, of course, but especially to Iran, which once again understands that it is infiltrated and under Israeli-American targeting.
This message must not be taken lightly: Iran is toying with the nuclear issue, and it is good to know that there is zero tolerance for it.
And yet, it is doubtful whether Iran will change its path.
The clear message that emerges from the affair is how much everything in the Middle East is driven by interests, not ideology.
Iran, which is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, is hosting one of the organization's senior members because it is serving it in its war against the Americans in Afghanistan.
She will continue to do so, as long as it serves her purposes.
Al-Qaeda also does not change its path.
Al-Masri is not the first senior member of the organization to be eliminated, nor the last.
Its symbolic importance has in recent years been greater than its operational importance, and it belonged to the founding generation that gradually disappeared.
He was replaced by a new and young operational leadership, operating under the auspices of the organization's leader, Ayman a-Zawahiri, who has quite a few question marks surrounding his condition and whereabouts.
It is likely that Washington (and perhaps Jerusalem) will be happy to add him to the list of those killed soon.