Televised ‘confessions’ claim Syrian involvement in Iraq

[TexasLawyer]

From the Daily Star, Pakistan BBC Radio had a report on these confessions this morning. Looks like we are demonizing the Syrians to the Iraqis. Why? I would guess that we want to take their minds off of hating America, so they can hate on someone else for a while. Also, when (if??) we start bombing the crap out of Syria, the Iraqis will be inspired to come help us.


Televised ‘confessions’ claim Syrian involvement in Iraq

Sunday, February 27, 2005

BAGHDAD: Alleged Sudanese, Egyptian and Iraqi extremists have been queuing up to “confess” on television how they were trained by Syrian intelligence officers to bomb Iraqi security forces and behead policemen and civilians.

“I took part in the decapitation of 10 Iraqis, all of them policemen,” a man, who gave his name as Mohammed H’moud Mohammed Moussa and said he was Sudanese, told the US-financed Iraqiya television station. “I was paid 50 dollars for each beheading even though I’d been promised a lot more,” he said. Moussa’s “confession” came in one of three programmes this week in which a string of men detained by security forces were brought forward one by one to tell a police interviewer of their alleged crimes.

The programmes are part of the Iraqi government’s bid to stamp out a mostly Sunni Arab insurgency that has left thousands dead since the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in April 2003. There was no way to verify the statements or the identities the men gave, while the Syrian government has roundly denied the claims. “These reports are false and without basis,” said a Syrian security official quoted by the official SANA news agency.

“Syria cares a lot about the security and the stability of Iraq and does not interfere in its internal affairs,” the official added. The men said they were part of a group that calls itself Jaish al-Tahrir, or the Army of Liberation, which they said was trained in a town on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. “I was trained by a Syrian intelligence officer called Abu Bakr,” said Adam Doum Omar, 41, a Sudanese who was presented as the leader of the group. “The cell that I ran was made up of Sudanese and Egyptians split into two groups, one of which specialises in beheadings and the other in planting bombs,” he said. The United States, as well as the Iraqi administration, has frequently accused Syria of involvement in Iraq’s insurgency.

<snip>

An Egyptian who gave his name as Mohammed Samir Mohammed Ramadan said that along with two other Egyptians he had “cut the throat of six Iraqi soldiers in a hotel”. “Our group abducted the six men and took them to the Our Hotel,” he said calmly. “Each member of the group killed two soldiers. We helped each other by holding the soldiers down.” afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_27-2-2005_pg4_2

[neweurope]

1. "We have no plans to attack Iran. That's ridiculous. First we have to

bomb Syria to smithereens!"

------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[hector459]

2. And we should believe these confessions because......?

I'm waiting.......:boring: :boring:

[TexasLawyer]

3. I'm wondering if the Iraqis believe the confessions

They're the ones to whom the ads are directed. Given their many years of Saddam's rule, it could be that the Iraqi citizens are accustomed to propaganda, I'm guessing they had to listen to a lot of Saddam's BS, so that Iraqis generally realize that not everything they see reported on TV is true.

Maybe the Iraqis are able to second guess the ads and won't get whipped up into a Syria-hating frenzy. I'll be anxious to see where this is going.

[googly]

4. Syria will be attacked as soon as Iraq has the constitution & election

of next government. So I am guessing sometime early next year.
The main reason for demolishing Syria? It is the major irritant
to Israel. The neocons will never let that threat linger any
longer than it has to.