An al-Qaeda-linked umbrella group in Iraq on Wednesday denied any link to a suspect, whose alleged confessions were aired on Jordanian television, in an internet statement posted on an Islamist website.
“We don’t even know the individual shown on Jordanian television,” the Mujahedin Consultative Council said.
The confessions of the man whom Jordanian state television presented as Ziad Khalaf al-Karbuli, an Iraqi, amounted to “a farce dreamt up by the henchmen of the Black House”, it said in reference to the White House.
“Each time the mujahedin [Islamic fighters] step up their blows against the enemy … their setbacks turn into myths and illusions in the minds of the crusaders and their agents,” the group said.
The statement could not be independently verified.
The suspect confessed late on Tuesday to murdering a Jordanian driver in Iraq and abducting two Moroccan embassy employees last year, who were handed over to the al-Qaeda group in Iraq run by Jordanian-born fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Al-Karbuli was a customs employee on the Iraqi border and was arrested in a joint operation by Jordanian intelligence and army special forces after luring him out of Iraq, according to Jordan television.
Jordanian authorities identified the suspect as “an important figure in the al-Qaeda in Iraq organisation” when they announced his arrest on Monday. — AFP