And in today's "Hall of Mirrors / Why are any of them allies" report...Iran reports Saudi official arrested in assassination of Hizbullah chief

NICOSIA -- Syria reportedly arrested a Saudi official in connection with the killing of Hizbullah operational chief Imad Mughniyeh.

Iranian sources said Syria detained a Saudi defense official in Damascus in early April. On April 8, the sources told the official Fars News Agency that the detained Saudi was working in the defense attache's office of the Saudi embassy in Damascus.

The Fars news agency said Saudi National Security Adviser Prince Bandar Bin Sultan ordered the assassination. abcnews.com

The Saudi was said to have been accused of helping plan the Mughniyeh assassination in February 2008. An Iranian source said the unidentified Saudi was connected to a Syrian woman who acquired and registered two car bombs used to kill Mughniyeh.

REGISTERED CAR BOMBS?
Yeah that's something we're familiar with, hello? That just makes this such a believable story.

Neither Saudi Arabia nor Syria has acknowledged the arrest. The two countries have maintained tense relations since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, an attack attributed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Iranian source said the detainee was directed to help kill Mughniyeh by Saudi National Security Adviser Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. Bandar was said to have been a Mughniyeh target in 1996 when the prince served as Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Fars said Bandar was believed to have worked with Israel.

The agency said Jordanians, Palestinians and Syrians were employed to rent apartments near Mughniyeh's residence in Damascus and conduct reconnaissance.

Syrian military intelligence chief Gen. Assaf Shawkat has asserted that people living in Syria killed Mughniyeh. Shawkat, one of the last people to have met Mughniyeh, was said to have been ousted by Assad since the car bombing.

The Fars News Agency said Syria has completed its investigation of the Mughniyeh killing. Fars said Gulf Cooperation Council states, particularly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, have pressed Assad to block release of the investigation.

This is a cute story for conspiracists, but let's all remember not only where it comes from, but WHO the audience is

"It is obvious that the Iranians, if the [Fars] story is fabricated, are trying either to conduct the Syrian orchestra from Teheran whether Assad likes it or not, especially given the strategic inter-dependence of Syria on the will of the mullahs, or Iran is leaking the story to force Assad's hands further by moving him beyond the six-degree of separation between Syria and her Arab brethren," the opposition Syrian Reform Party said on April 10.

"Either way, Teheran, with this leak, is upping the ante against Riyad and at the same time forcing Assad to read from the same sheet of music."

And that's far more likely than the Al Saud and the jews buddying up for a round of obamarama kumbaya around the old campfire, wouldn't you say?