The Latest from Iran (27 January): Pilgrims and Soldiers
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:37
A photo of five abducted Iranian "engineers", with their Syrian cook --- are they the five captured "Iranian soldiers" shown in a video from Syria?
See also Syria Video Special: Free Syrian Army Captures "Iranian Soldiers"
2119 GMT: Warning the Supreme Leader. Earlier this month Hossein Alaei, the former Revolutionary Guards commander, caused a stir with an article implicitly warning the Supreme Leader against the consequences of repression. Twelve Guards commanders called Alaei an agent of the enemy and an angry crowd gathered outside his house and defaced it, while other former commanders and some conservative politicians defended him.
Now Alaei has put out another statement, in Jomhouri Eslami, about dictatorships. This one, however, is carefully worded to avoid accusations that the former commander is challenging Ayatollah Khamenei. He states that dictatorships have come to an end, referring to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and continues that "dictators cannot rule with tyranny".
2059 GMT: The "Iranian Soldiers" in Syria. The Iranian Embassy in Syria's Press attaché, Leva'a Roudbari, has declared that none of the seven Iranians held by the Free Syrian Army are in the military, “The kidnappers’ claims is baseless."
Roudbari, in an interview with Syrian State TV, also appeared to say that two of the seven men would be released, "Iran welcomes the kidnappers’ decision to free two of the kidnapped engineers.”
In statements to Reuters (see 1932 GMT), members of the Free Syrian Army said that, while the first five Iranians seized were not engineers but were snipers assisting the Assad regime's military, the two men who came to Syria to enquire about them were civilians.
There is a curiosity in the article with Roudbari's statement, however. The six men in the accompanying photograph, shown in a power plant, do not appear to be match up to the "engineers" seized in Syria.
