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Blair regime exploiting soldiers' deaths: families

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: Families of British soldiers killed in Iraq have accused the Government of exploiting their deaths for political purposes by blaming them on Iranian-backed resistance groups.

The claim about Iranian involvement, first made by an anonymous British official and echoed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, has since been proved unfounded.

At a joint press conference with the visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Downing Street in October last year, Mr. Blair had insisted on Iranian involvement and warned Teheran against "interfering'' in Iraq.

The mother of one of the three soldiers, killed in an explosion in southern Iraq last July, said the Blair Government was exploiting the death of her son.

"They don't like Iran and they are using this for sympathy towards their attitude claiming that they were involved in the murders of our sons... It makes me really angry.

"They should be dealing with people who killed our sons and not using it as a weapon,'' said Sue Smith whose son Philip Hewitt was killed in the July incident.

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