(Guardian-UK) Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane and Guy Grandjean - Five British men kidnapped in Iraq in 2007 were taken in an operation led and masterminded by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, according to an extensive investigation by the Guardian. The men - including Peter Moore, who was released Wednesday after more than two years in captivity - were taken to Iran within a day of their kidnap from a government ministry building in Baghdad. They were incarcerated in prisons run by the al-Quds force, a unit that specializes in foreign operations on behalf of the Iranian government. One of the kidnappers told the Guardian that three of the Britons - Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlan - were subsequently killed after the British government refused to take ransom demands seriously. Moore was released in exchange for the release by the Iraqi government of Shia cleric Qais al-Khazali, a leading figure in the Righteous League, a proxy of the al-Quds force.
2009-12-31 09:08:34Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive