*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) MUSCAT, Oman - September 1, 2009: A suspected al-Qaeda militant from Saudi Arabia has confessed to having been trained by Syrian intelligence agents 
to act against Iraq's national security. Iraqi authorities aired the videotaped confession by 29-year-old Mohammed Hassan al-Shemari on Sunday.
to act against Iraq's national security. Iraqi authorities aired the videotaped confession by 29-year-old Mohammed Hassan al-Shemari on Sunday. The Saudi national said that he had entered Iraq with the help of Syrian intelligence agents after completing his training course in an al Qaeda training camp near the Syrian port city of Latakia.
"I entered Iraq through Syria`s Al-Bukamal border region along with three Saudi, Libyan and Algerian nationals and was deployed in Iraq's Diyala Province," he explained.
Shemari said when he first arrived in Syria from Saudi Arabia, he was met by a Syrian intelligence agent, called 'Abu al-Qaqaa', who took him to an al-Qaeda training camp.
"They gave us lessons in Islamic law and trained us to fight. The camp was well known to Syrian intelligence," Reuters quoted him as saying. Al-Shemari pointed out that the group, with which he was trained, included other Saudi nationals, as well as Libyans, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, Yemenis, Kuwaitis and Syrians.
The al-Qaeda militant, moreover, confessed that he had received Syrian and Saudi financial support in order to carry out acts of terrorism against Shias in Iraq. Al-Shemari also mentioned that he had given lessons in decapitation, adding that he had beheaded some Iraqi police officers in order to train armed fighters.
The videotaped confession could ratchet up already existing tensions between Iraq and Syria. Al-Shemari was arrested in Diyala province before last week's bombings on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
Last week, both countries recalled their ambassadors after Iraq demanded Syria hand over two alleged masterminds of Baghdad bombings, which had claimed the lives of almost 100 people, mainly at two government ministries.
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