On that "puzzling question"

Here is the NY Times reporting on recent US Treasury statements about the long-known link between Iran and Al-Qaeda:

Weighing in on the puzzling question of whether Iran’s Shiite regime seeks to help the primarily Sunni Al Qaeda, Treasury officials asserted that the Iranian government had entered into an agreement with operatives of the terrorist group and was allowing the country to be used as a transit point for funneling money and people from the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and Afghanistan. [...]

"Puzzling question"? Did they happen to notice that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are Sunni?