The omnipresence of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya  broadcast a video by a group claiming itself as ‘Al-Farouq’ brigade from the ‘Free Syrian Army’. The video  claims to show the kidnapping of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Rumours of the capture of Hezbollah fighters and Iranian officers, specifically snipers, is nothing new and has been passing around Saudi owned media outlets since the onset of the uprising. However, in this instance we have claimed footage of captives from the Revolutionary Guard (they are shown to be snipers, with a rifle made salient in the video, to affirm their supposed profession) and video footage of their passports. Two passports appearing in the video do not indicate membership of the ‘Revolutionary Guard’ or even their military affiliation but documents that two of the captives to be police officers from Iranian immigration and passport services. The discrepancy between the claims of the kidnappers and the passports they film questions their claims. This is pertinent considering  the persistent and almost obsessive sectarian campaign, in the Saudi and March 14 Alliance owned media, to broadcast any rumour of the presence of snipers from Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards. For example, this news item from the overtly sectarian website ‘Al-Watan’, claims from an unnamed ‘Free Syrian Army’ officer the killing of 160 fighters from Hezbollah and the Iranian ‘Revolutionary Guard’! Similar media campaigns were run by Israeli news outlets during the 2006 onslaught on Lebanon, claiming the capture or killing of Iranian ‘Revolutionary Guard’ soldiers, though expectedly no evidence was provided.

Press TV, a media organ of Iranian state, reported the kidnapping of Iranian engineers, in Homs, from late December 2011. A picture is published in a more recent news item of some of the captives and substantiates the claims of the video producers that at least two of the captives were engineers working in the city of Homs. Other than the engineers taken captive, though it is not clear why an armed group would kidnap these engineers, Press TV reports the kidnapping of Iranian pilgrims, according to a foreign ministry spokesman, in a trip from Aleppo to Damascus. It is not clear if some of those appearing in the video were pilgrims but considering the discrepancies in the claims of those filming the footage, including the strange presence of engineers as captives, there is serious doubt that the captives are military personnel.