http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/dec/30/iraq-hostage-peter-moore-release">Revealed: evidence of Iran's involvement in the kidnapping of the five Britons in BaghdadMona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Guy Grandjean, Teresa Smith, Jacqui Timberlake and Joe McAllisterguardian.co.uk, Thursday 31 December 2009
Following a year-long investigation, GuardianFilms has exclusively uncovered the story of what happened to the five Britons kidnapped in Iraq on 29 May 2007, as the only survivor, Peter Moore, is released
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/dec/30/iraq-hostage-peter-moore-release---- --- ----
These Guardian articles give insightful background to the documentary...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/british-hostages-baghdad-iraq-iran">Bush threats and an $18bn secret: why Iran's kidnap squad decided to strikeAbu Kuther sits in the candlelight, casually flicking his left wrist and sending a long string of prayer beads arching into the air. "There is a famous Arabic saying," he says. "There are many ways to die but death is always the same."
Kuther, interviewed in a secret location in Baghdad for the Guardian, said he was one of the kidnappers of five Britons taken from a government ministry building in the Baghdad in May 2007.
He has told the Guardian that he was a member of militia group called the "Righteous League" – what he doesn't admit is that the league is a front for the Iranian Quds force created, trained and funded by Iran, and that the kidnapping of the five Britons was led by al-Quds force commandos.
The kidnapper spoke to the Guardian after being identified by a senior leader for the Righteous League and a member of the family of the man later exchanged as part of the deal which saw Peter Moore's freedom.
A year-long investigation by the Guardian can reveal that Iran's Islamic regime – and specifically the al-Quds force – was heavily involved in the kidnapping of the five men.
Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/british-hostages-baghdad-iraq-iran---- --- ----
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/iran-britons-baghdad-kidnapping">Revealed: hand of Iran behind Britons' Baghdad kidnapping• Hostage released after two years
• Shia cleric freed as part of deal
• Aid money at heart of abduction
=snip=
Last night it emerged that part of the deal that led to the release of Moore involved the handing over of a young Shia cleric, Qais al-Khazali, a leading figure in the Righteous League, which emerged in 2006 and stayed largely in the shadows as a proxy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's elite unit, the al-Quds forces. Khazali was last night handed over by the US military for release by the Iraqi government.
The year-long Guardian investigation can also reveal that:
• Moore was targeted because he was installing a system that would show how a vast amount of international aid was diverted to Iran's militia groups in Iraq.
• The bodyguards' bodies were eventually traded for the release of Iraqi prisoners.
• They had probably been dead for at least 18 months before three of their bodies were handed over earlier this year.
Moore, 37, a computer expert from Lincoln, and the four security guards were taken on 29 May 2007 from the Iraqi ministry of finance's technology centre in Baghdad. He had been a contractor working to install sophisticated software in the ministry to track down billions of dollars in international aid and oil revenues.
A group of up to 100 men entered the building and took the Britons, racing off into Baghdad traffic in a fleet of Toyota Land Cruisers. A sixth man – who the Guardian can reveal was Peter Donkin – was left by the kidnappers after he managed to hide under floorboards.
=snip=
A former senior Iraqi intelligence chief claims the project Moore was working on would have laid bare exactly where all Iraq's money was going. He claims there was an Iranian link to the alleged financial cover-up. The Foreign Office said last night: "We have no evidence that the British hostages, including Peter Moore, were held in Iran. We are not in a position to say with any certainty where they were held during each and every single day."
Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/iran-britons-baghdad-kidnapping---- --- ----
In LBN...
General Petraeus: British hostage Peter Moore was held in Iran: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4207436
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