Syrian hand in Iraq violence denied

Ilias Murad, chief editor of Syria’s Baath party newspaper, in an interview with Aljazeera on Friday, said every time resistance escalated in Iraq, accusations were made against other countries, and in this case against Syria. 

 

He dismissed the charges made by Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rabiai as “baseless and devoid of truth”. 

 

“To say that these resistance operations are planned by Syria would not be true. But if you say they might have been planned by some individuals, who resided in Syria at one time or the other, that does not mean that Syria is training or rehabilitating fighters to carry out operations in Iraq,” he said.

 

Credibility

 

If these accusations did have any credibility, they would certainly have been raised at the recent meeting between the Syrian and interim Iraqi interior ministers on the sidelines of a meeting held in Tehran by Iraq‘s neighbours, Murad said.

 

“To say that these resistance operations are planned by Syria would not be true” Ilias Murad, chief editor, Baath party newspaper

About the impact of these accusations on relations between Syria and the US and their bilateral understanding on fighting terrorism, he said the recent visit to Damascus by a high-level Palestinian delegation and the thaw in ties between the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon might have irked some quarters and provoked such accusations – to put pressure both on Syria and Lebanon.

 

Iraq’s al-Rabiai had accused Syria of allowing fighters to cross the border to Iraq to carry out what he termed as terrorist attacks.

 

Al-Rabiai had said the assault in November in Falluja had uncovered evidence of money transfers between Falluja and Damascus.

 

The Iraqi official further accused Syria of allowing infiltrators to cross the border.