Free Syrian Army publishes video showing kidnapped Iranians are not pilgrims but Revolutionary Guards

The Al Arabiya TV station network released a video about kidnapped Iranians in which it was claimed that they were members of the elite Iranian revolutionary guards, and the ID of a Revolutionary Guard member was shown.

Al Arabiya said it recently interviewed an officer who said, “They are 48, in addition to an Afghani interpreter," and he claimed they are part of a larger 150-strong group sent by Iran for reconnaissance.

"During the investigation, we found that some of them were officers in the revolutionary guards," he said, showing documents taken from one of the men, who appeared in the background.

Iran's state-run news agency said that the 48 abducted on Saturday were pilgrims. They were captured by the Free Syrian Army fighters as they travelled from the airport in Damascus to a home in the suburbs of the capital, where they supposedly were planning to visit the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a Shiite pilgrimage site in the southeastern suburbs of Damascus.

Iranian state media reported that Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi has appealed to Turkey and Qatar counterparts Ahmet Davutoglu and Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani and demanded their intervention to help release them.

Separately, an Islamic jihadist group, the Al Nusra Front, has taken responsibility for kidnapping and murdering a Syrian television presenter .

According to Reuters news, the Syrian observatory for human Rights had said that Syrian state television presenter Mohammed al-Saeed had been executed.

He was executed following an interrogation, the group stated, according to a report by the SITE monitoring group, which tracks Jihadist websites.

However, a group, by the same name, claimed in a separate communique that its members had stormed and destroyed a police station near Damascus in an operation with the Free Syrian Army. Equipment and weapons had been captured during the operation, the statement said.

Watch full video of the kiddnapped Iranians, over voiced with English (http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/08/05/230496.html).

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4264594,00.html