Atiyah is the al-Qa‘ida emissary in Iran as appointed by Usama Bin Ladin. He recruits and facilitates talks with other Islamic groups to operate under al-Qa‘ida. He is also a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al-Sunna. Atiyah has been in regular contact with senior al-Qa‘ida leaders.

Atiyah joined Usama Bin Ladin in Afghanistan as a teenager in the 1980s. Since then, he has gained considerable stature in al-Qa‘ida as an explosives expert and Islamic scholar. Atiyah became acquainted with Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi in the western city of Herat in the late 1990s. He retreated with Usama Bin Ladin to the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border region in the fall of 2001.