The Daily Star of Beirut said it had received a statement from a group calling itself the “Movement Against the Shiite Tide in Syria.”
The statement said the group was holding the seven Iranians seized in Homs December 20 and 21.
“We took it upon ourselves to detect and strike all forms of support provided by both Iran and Hezbollah” for the Syrian government, the statement said.
There was no way of knowing whether the statement was just an invention or actually came from those holding the seven engineers, who had been building a power plant in Homs. The statement did not include any IDs, photos or videos from the missing engineers to prove the statement’s authenticity.
The statement said, “We warn Iran and Hezbollah that their members will face the same fate as the five [sic] Iranians if they do not immediately halt all forms of support” for the Syrian government.
Before the statement was issued, Iranian officials said they had no idea who had taken the men captive or why.
Despite that total absence of information, some news outlets reported that the men were all in could health, something they couldn’t possibly know. The Fars news agency also claimed that the kidnapers were torturing their captives to wear Pasdar uniforms and confess on video that they had been sent to Syria to help save the Syrian government.
That Fars story was published Tuesday, January 3, two days before the “Movement Against the Shiite Tide in Syria” claimed it was holding the engineers.