guyone
03-25-2007, 06:52 PM
By Rupert Hamer Defence Correspondent Rupert.Hamer@Sundaymirror.Co.Uk
HARDLINERS who seized 15 British sailors and marines will demand a "prisoners swap" of Iranian agents to secure their release.
Up to 50 Iranian "spies" have been captured and imprisoned by British troops in secret operations in southern Iraq in the last four years.
Now Government officials are having to consider setting them free to save the eight sailors - one a woman - and seven Royal Marines held by Iranians.
The revelation came as the sailors were interrogated by the Iranian secret service after reportedly being moved to the capital, Tehran.
Meanwhile Foreign Office minister Lord Triesman spent an hour with Iran's ambassador in London demanding their safe return.
The ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, responded by blaming Naval personnel for straying into "territorial waters".
The sailors, serving on frigate HMS Cornwall, had been on two inflatable speed boats searching for smugglers coming from Iraq.
But shortly after boarding a small boat on the Shatt al Arab waterway on the Iran-Iraq border to check for illegal goods, they were surrounded by Iranian Revolutionary Guard gunboats. Led away under armed guard, the sailors were taken to a nearby base.
Yesterday Iranian military official General Ali Reza Afshar said the sailors had all "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters".
He said: "They are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters."
Afisherman on the Shatt al-Arab who witnessed the incident said the British had definitely been in Iraqi waters.
Last night a senior Whitehall source said: "The freeing of agents will almost certainly be one of Iran's demands - and there certainly will be demands.
"Some have been arrested, some have been repatriated, but many are still being questioned under lock and key.
"Their imprisonment has enraged Iranian leaders - most of whom do not even recognise Iran's borders with Iraq."
Tensions are already high between Iran and the West, as the UN voted last night for tougher sanctions against Iran's plans to go ahead with its programme to create a nuclear weapon.
Plans for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the UN in New York yesterday were cancelled amid claims that visas had been obstructed.
A SERIES of suicide bombs targeting Iraqi police ripped through Baghdad yesterday, killing more than 60 people.
In the worst attack, at least 20 died when a lorry full of explosives blew up by a police station in the Dora district.
HARDLINERS who seized 15 British sailors and marines will demand a "prisoners swap" of Iranian agents to secure their release.
Up to 50 Iranian "spies" have been captured and imprisoned by British troops in secret operations in southern Iraq in the last four years.
Now Government officials are having to consider setting them free to save the eight sailors - one a woman - and seven Royal Marines held by Iranians.
The revelation came as the sailors were interrogated by the Iranian secret service after reportedly being moved to the capital, Tehran.
Meanwhile Foreign Office minister Lord Triesman spent an hour with Iran's ambassador in London demanding their safe return.
The ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, responded by blaming Naval personnel for straying into "territorial waters".
The sailors, serving on frigate HMS Cornwall, had been on two inflatable speed boats searching for smugglers coming from Iraq.
But shortly after boarding a small boat on the Shatt al Arab waterway on the Iran-Iraq border to check for illegal goods, they were surrounded by Iranian Revolutionary Guard gunboats. Led away under armed guard, the sailors were taken to a nearby base.
Yesterday Iranian military official General Ali Reza Afshar said the sailors had all "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters".
He said: "They are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters."
Afisherman on the Shatt al-Arab who witnessed the incident said the British had definitely been in Iraqi waters.
Last night a senior Whitehall source said: "The freeing of agents will almost certainly be one of Iran's demands - and there certainly will be demands.
"Some have been arrested, some have been repatriated, but many are still being questioned under lock and key.
"Their imprisonment has enraged Iranian leaders - most of whom do not even recognise Iran's borders with Iraq."
Tensions are already high between Iran and the West, as the UN voted last night for tougher sanctions against Iran's plans to go ahead with its programme to create a nuclear weapon.
Plans for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the UN in New York yesterday were cancelled amid claims that visas had been obstructed.
A SERIES of suicide bombs targeting Iraqi police ripped through Baghdad yesterday, killing more than 60 people.
In the worst attack, at least 20 died when a lorry full of explosives blew up by a police station in the Dora district.