Iran seeks help for kidnapped 'pilgrims' who Syrian rebels say are 'Republican Guards'

An image grab from Al-Arabiya shows footage the channel said it obtained from Syrian rebels. The video shows a rebel fighter accusing kidnapped Iranians, seen behind him, of being elite Revolutionary Guards. AFP/Al-Arabiya

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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

TEHRAN-- Iran has reached out to Turkey and Qatar to ask for their help in freeing what it said were 48 Iranian pilgrims being held in Syria after their bus was stormed in Damascus, state media reported on Sunday.

But Al-Arabiya television aired footage it said it had obtained from Syrian rebels of Iranians kidnapped in Damascus, in which a rebel fighter charges the hostages are elite Revolutionary Guards.

The rebels "captured 48 of the shabiha (militiamen) of Iran who were on a reconnaissance mission in Damascus," said a man dressed as an officer of the rebel Free Syrian Army, in the video screened by the Dubai-based channel.

"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.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi telephoned his Turkish and Qatari counterparts, Ahmet Davutoglu and Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani, late Saturday to request their assistance, the state television website reported.

Turkey and Qatar are, along with Saudi Arabia, prime supporters of the Syrian opposition.

Iran is the staunchest supporter of the Syrian regime battling rebels it terms "terrorists."

The Iranians were kidnapped on Saturday as they were travelling in a bus to the airport in Damascus, according to the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital and the Syrian state news agency SANA.

It was the single biggest abduction of Iranians since the start of the Syrian uprising in March last year.

Since December, 32 other Iranians -- pilgrims, engineers and truck drivers -- have been taken, presumably by rebel groups, in several separate instances. Twenty-seven of them have been released in recent months, in some cases with Turkish help, according to Iran's official IRNA news agency.

The website of state television said Salehi was again tapping Turkey for its "immediate intervention to liberate the Iranian pilgrims held hostage in Syria," and had also asked Qatar for help.

Davutoglu responded by promising "to study the issue and to carry out efforts as in previous cases," the website said.

Up to 700,000 Iranians used to travel to Syria each year to visit the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a Shiite pilgrimage site in the southeastern suburbs of Damascus, but that number has dropped since the outbreak of violence in Syria.

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