KIDNAPPED ISRAELIS MOVED TO IRAN?

Israel: Goldwasser, Regev not in Iran (JPost)

Both Israeli and Iranian officials denied a report in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper Sunday claiming that kidnapped IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were transferred to Iran.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat, the soldiers were moved last July in an operation directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a short time after the two were kidnapped by Hizbullah in a cross-border raid.

The paper further claimed that a deal was in the works involving Iran and Germany, whereby Germany would release Kazem Darabi, an Iranian sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin in 1992, in return for the kidnapped soldiers.

German officials announced last Thursday their intention to release Darabi, a move that was protested by the family of missing airman Ron Arad, who said that Darabi was a valuable "bargaining chip" that could possibly be used to gain information about Arad.

Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office categorically denied the report, labeling it "juicy nonsense" and Iranian "misinformation."

Israel Radio quoted an Iranian official close to the Teheran regime as also denying the report, saying it was a blatant attempt to implicate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the kidnapping to place the group on the US's list of terrorist organizations, something currently under consideration.

Asharq Al-Awsat journalist Ali Nourizadeh told Israel Radio, however, that the sources claiming Goldwasser and Regev had been transferred to Iran were "very reliable."