Insurgent Admits Iran, Syria Links on Tape

AP: A militant leader suspected of involvement in beheadings and bloody attacks in Iraq confessed to Iraqi authorities his group’s links with Iran and Syria, according to footage aired by the US-based and funded Alhurra television. By ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A militant leader suspected of involvement in beheadings and bloody attacks in Iraq confessed to Iraqi authorities his group’s links with Iran and Syria, according to footage aired by the US-based and funded Alhurra television.

Moayad Ahmed Yasseen, the leader of Jaish Muhammad, Arabic for Muhammad’s Army, was shown in the program aired in Iraq Friday, nearly two months after his capture in Fallujah, the guerrilla stronghold west of Baghdad.

The Arabic-language station said the Iraq Ministry of Defense provided the tape, filmed on Dec. 24. The circumstances of his purported confession were unclear.

Yasseen, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein’s army, said two former military officers were sent “to Iran in April or May, where they met a number of Iranian intelligence officials.”

He said Iranian officials provided money, weapons “and as far as I know even car bombs” for the group. He said among the officials they met in Iran was its supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Yasseen also said he got permission from Saddam _ while the former dictator was in hiding after his ouster during the US led invasion in 2003 to cross into Syria and meet a Syrian intelligence officer to ask for money and weapons. He didn’t say if the request was granted.