The rebels later said three of those men were killed Monday when Syrian government planes bombed the area of Damascus where they were being held and a roof collapsed on top of them.
The Islamic Republic said none of the captives are Iranian military men. It said they are all pilgrims visiting Syria chiefly to worship at the Shrine of Hazrat Zeinab, granddaughter of the Prophet, who is buried in a suburb of Damascus.
The rebels charge that Iran has sent combat troops to Syria to help put down the rebellion. The most common assertion heard from the rebels is that the snipers who perch on rooftops and gun down Syrians in the streets are mostly Iranians.
Western analysts say Iran is helping Assad big time, but give little credence to the sniper reports. US officials say Iran has been supplying Assad with arms and ammunition, with advice on tactics, and with technical aid on how to spy on communications to locate rebel leaders. US officials have not put a number on the size of the Iranian presence in Syria, but it is commonly thought to be in the low hundreds.
An Israeli daily reported Saturday that Iran has sent 3,000 snipers to Damascus in the past few weeks, but no major media outlet or officials have given that credence.
The rebels, however, are clearly targeting Iranians.
Earlier this year, rebels kidnaped 11 men from each of two buses in Syria. They took the males and left the women and children behind. Iran said those were pilgrim buses, and the fact that the men had women and children with them gave credence to those claims. Those 22 men have all since been freed by the rebels.
But this time, there was no mention of women and children—and 48 men would fill a bus to near capacity.
If the kidnaped men are indeed pilgrims, it begs the question of why the Iranian government continues to send pilgrims to Syria—especially given that 32 Iranians had been kidnaped before this latest group.
Two weeks before the latest kidnaping, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said, “The conditions in Damascus are normal and Iranian nationals in Syria are facing no problem.”
According to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the death toll in the 17-month-old rebellion has now passed 19,000.
The rebels claimed that some of the men they took off the bus had Iranian military cards. Iran said that was their discharge papers. All Iranian men carry discharge papers with them because they are subject to being grabbed for the military if they cannot produce those papers at a roadblock.
The rebels also kidnaped seven men in December who were described as engineers working on an electricity generating project. The rebels originally charged that they were military officers and said they had military IDs. Iran said those were also discharge papers. The rebels soon ceased charging that the men were military officers and has freed five of the seven.
Another three Iranians were taken captive in May. Iran says they are truckers. All three are still detained by the rebels.
A video broadcast by Dubai-based Al-Arabiyya television showed the captive Iranians sitting under the flag of the Free Syria Army and surrounded by men carrying rifles. One rebel officer who was interviewed but not named on the video said “several” of the Iranians were Pasdaran. He didn’t explain what the others were or why they were being detained if they weren’t military men.
The exact circumstances of the capture of the men remains unclear. All news reports agree they were on a bus. Iranian reports varied in saying the bus was headed to the airport, to the Shrine of Hazrat Zeinab or from the Shrine.
Captain Abd el-Nasser Ash-Shumair, commander of the al-Baraa Brigade of the Free Syria Army, told Al-Arabiyya the bus was far from the Shrine and headed toward a section of Damascus where government troops and rebels were then fighting.
The rebels have not, however, claimed to have taken any weapons from the Iranians and it would be unlikely they would head into a combat zone unarmed.
Shumair said, “We received information about the Iranians and have been tracking them for two months.” He said his troops were “still checking their documents to prove the identity of these detainees and will make our findings public in due course.” If the Iranians were indeed clandestine fighters, it would be unlikely that Iran would dispatch them to Syria with any documents saying they were clandestine fighters.
Fars reported Monday that Syrian officials had concluded that the Syrian driver of the bus was a member of the Free Syrian Army who effectively drove the 48 men into captivity.
But the rebels didn’t say where the Iranians had been spending their time or whether they had entered any Syrian military buildings, which the rebels ought to know if they had in fact been tracking them for two months.
Iran asked Turkey and Qatar to intervene to try to free the captives. Both agreed to do so. Turkey is believed to have been the major factor in the release of the Iranians previously kidnaped in Syria.
Here is the record of the kidnappings of Iranians in Syria and the descriptions of the men given by Iran:
Dec 7 engineers
Jan 11 pilgrims
Feb 11 pilgrims
May 3 truckers
Aug 48 pilgrims
Two of the engineers, all three truckers and the latest batch of 48 remain in captivity.