Patrick Cockburn: Could an 'Entebbe-style' raid have saved British hostages?
[Patrick Cockburn is a foreign correspondent at the Independent.]
British officials briefly believed that the Britons kidnapped in Baghdad in 2007 were being held in Iran and considered a commando raid to free them.
In the latest act of the tragedy surrounding the fate of the five hostages, officials in London have told the families of two of the guards, Alan McMenemy, from Glasgow, and Alec Maclachlan, from South Wales, that the two men are probably dead. The bodies of two other guards, Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst, were delivered in caskets through an intermediary to a Baghdad police station on 19 June. Mr Creswell, 39, of Glasgow, and Mr Swindlehurst, 38, of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, were both found by an inquest in the UK to have "died from gunshot wounds". A source in Iraq claimed the two men had been killed some two-and-a-half months earlier, which would put their deaths some time in early April.
Since Peter Moore, 36, a computer consultant, and his four security guards were seized in the Iraqi finance ministry by 40 men dressed as policemen two years ago, it has never been clear who was holding them and where they were being kept. The kidnappers belong to the Asaib al-Haq militant group which split from the Mehdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shia cleric, which had earlier declared a ceasefire. Their main demand has been the release of the movement's chief, Qais al-Khazali, who had once been Mr Sadr's spokesman, along with his brother Laith and other leaders who were captured in Basra on 20 March 2007. Two months later, the five Britons were seized in a meticulously organised raid.
British security sources believe that at some point the five British hostages were held in Iran, which shares a highly porous, 900-mile long border with Iraq. Consideration was given to launching a raid to free them, but the plan was abandoned as too dangerous and unlikely to succeed. Negotiations with the kidnappers were all the more difficult because Britain did not want to make concessions and was, in any case, in no position to do so, since the Qais al-Khazali and the prisoners Asaib al-Haq wanted released were held by the Americans.
The US military had no wish to let him go because, when the Khazali brothers were captured, they had in their possession a 22-page document, allegedly prepared by the Quds Force, part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, giving details of the US defences at their camp at Kerbala. This was the target of an expertly planned raid in which five US soldiers were killed, though the attack may have been a botched operation to kidnap them...
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
British officials briefly believed that the Britons kidnapped in Baghdad in 2007 were being held in Iran and considered a commando raid to free them.
In the latest act of the tragedy surrounding the fate of the five hostages, officials in London have told the families of two of the guards, Alan McMenemy, from Glasgow, and Alec Maclachlan, from South Wales, that the two men are probably dead. The bodies of two other guards, Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst, were delivered in caskets through an intermediary to a Baghdad police station on 19 June. Mr Creswell, 39, of Glasgow, and Mr Swindlehurst, 38, of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, were both found by an inquest in the UK to have "died from gunshot wounds". A source in Iraq claimed the two men had been killed some two-and-a-half months earlier, which would put their deaths some time in early April.
Since Peter Moore, 36, a computer consultant, and his four security guards were seized in the Iraqi finance ministry by 40 men dressed as policemen two years ago, it has never been clear who was holding them and where they were being kept. The kidnappers belong to the Asaib al-Haq militant group which split from the Mehdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shia cleric, which had earlier declared a ceasefire. Their main demand has been the release of the movement's chief, Qais al-Khazali, who had once been Mr Sadr's spokesman, along with his brother Laith and other leaders who were captured in Basra on 20 March 2007. Two months later, the five Britons were seized in a meticulously organised raid.
British security sources believe that at some point the five British hostages were held in Iran, which shares a highly porous, 900-mile long border with Iraq. Consideration was given to launching a raid to free them, but the plan was abandoned as too dangerous and unlikely to succeed. Negotiations with the kidnappers were all the more difficult because Britain did not want to make concessions and was, in any case, in no position to do so, since the Qais al-Khazali and the prisoners Asaib al-Haq wanted released were held by the Americans.
The US military had no wish to let him go because, when the Khazali brothers were captured, they had in their possession a 22-page document, allegedly prepared by the Quds Force, part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, giving details of the US defences at their camp at Kerbala. This was the target of an expertly planned raid in which five US soldiers were killed, though the attack may have been a botched operation to kidnap them...