Syria plots an Iraqi Anschluss

The current most popular show on Al-Iraqya TV, "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice," airs interviews with captured insurgents. Many of those featured on the show have turned out to be from Syria or to have connections to the Syrian Intelligence Service. Here is a revealing statement taken from a transcript of the interrogation of a captured Syrian intelligence officer, First Lieutenant Fadi Al-Abdallah, as he describes Syria's hopes to "unite" itself with Iraq through a campaign of slaughter and propaganda. It looks as if the plan is pretty standard fare: Destabilize Iraq, convince the Iraqis to send the Americans packing, and then fill the ensuing vacuum with a Syrian military presence. Good for Syria, bad for Iran, and back to business as usual for the Kurds and Shiites who lived for decades under the boot of a Sunni-dominated Baath party. Anyway, Assad can't have all those soldiers and spies recently evicted from Lebanon hanging around Damascus causing trouble.

Interviewer: Then why did you form these networks before the fall of the regime?

Fadi Al-Abdallah: Sir, in order to unite Syria and Iraq. These were the instructions we received from above.
...

Interviewer: So all the CDs that are circulating on the streets -All these acts of slaughter and other thing one is ashamed to mention - Why did you film them and circulate them?

Fadi Al-Abdallah: Sir, this is what the Syrian government wanted.

Interviewer: You mean there was a purpose behind this.

Fadi Al-Abdallah: Yes, sir.

Interviewer: What was the purpose of these acts?

Fadi Al-Abdallah: To terrorize the [Iraqi] people and make them hate the Americans and the new government."

Al-Iraqya broadcast this interview in late March. Click here to see a clip of the show with translation provided by the indispensable MEMRI TV.

MEMRI TV also has a clip of another "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice" in which a young woman claims that the Syrian Intelligence Services coerced her into spying in Iraq by kidnapping and threatening her daughter.