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Saudi Arabia to Contact Iraq on Saudi Detainee Spying for Iran | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – The Saudi Interior Ministry has stated that it would contact the Iraqi authorities to verify the identity of a man who Baghdad said was a Saudi national and who admitted that he worked for an Iranian intelligence agency in Iraq.

Maj. Gen Mansur al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hasin Ulaywi al-Arjani, whom the Iraqi security authorities have detained, is “unknown to us.” Al-Turki stressed that the Saudi authorities “will contact the brothers in Iraq to verify the identity of that person.”

He was arrested as he attempted to infiltrate into Iran. An Iraqi security source stated earlier yesterday that the Iraqi police arrested a Saudi national while attempting to cross into Iran on an illegal Iraqi passport on Saturday, noting that the man confessed that he worked for an Iranian intelligence agency in Iraq.

Iraqi Police Capt, Aziz al-Imarah, told AFP that “the Iraqi security forces detained Hasin Ulaywi al-Arjani (20 years), a Saudi national, while he was attempting to sneak into Iran via the Mahran border point, 150 kilometers east of Baghdad.” He added that “Al-Arjani carried an illegal Iraqi passport and admitted to working for an Iranian intelligence agency Iraq.” He stressed that “the detained person lives in Najd, northeast of Saudi Arabia.”

The US forces in Iraq have accused Iran of seeking to destabilize Iraq, something that Iran has denied. A US military official said on Friday that the Al-Qods Corps, which belongs to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanese Hezbollah, trains Iraqi “death squads” In Qom, Tehran, Mashhad, and Al-Ahwaz in Iran in carrying out attacks against specific Iraqi targets.