Report links Syrian intelligence to Iraq insurgents
Syria’s intelligence service has been secretly supporting the Sunni insurgents in Iraq, a Paris-based intelligence newsletter reported.
An imam shot to death in Aleppo in September was a go-between for Syrian intelligence, the Sunni movement Fatah al Islam and the insurgency in Iraq, according to Intelligence Online.
The imam, Mahmud Gould Aghassi, alias Abu al Qaaqaa, was killed Sept. 28 before the main door of his mosque at Al Imane in Aleppo. Qaaqaa was a recruiter of Islamists seeking to fight in Iraq.
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An investigation by Lebanese intelligence revealed he was also a regular supplier of fighters for the small Sunni group Fatah al Islam which fought the Lebanese army in the Palestinian camp of Nahr al Bared between May and September.
Qaaqaa's contact in Syrian military intelligence was Gen. Mustapha al Tajer, head of the service's Palestinian section. After Al Tajer died in 2003, the head of military intelligence, Gen. Assef Shawkat, oversaw Qaaqaa's recruiting operations, according to the report.
In August, Iraqi interior minister Jawad Boulani provided a list of insurgent recruiters to his Syrian counterpart, Gen. Basam Abd al Majid during a visit to Damascus. Qaaqaa headed the list.
