Honduran authorities on Wednesday said they had intercepted six Syrian nationals traveling on doctored Greek passports in the past week, including five who had been trying to reach the US.
There were no signs of any links to last week’s deadly attacks in Paris that killed 129 people, police said.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the shooting and suicide bombing assaults.
Photo: Reuters
Five of the men were detained late on Tuesday in Tegucigalpa upon arrival from Costa Rica, and had been planning to head to the border with Guatemala, police said, adding that passports had been doctored to replace the original photographs with those of the Syrians.
The five were trying to reach the US, Honduran police spokesman Anibal Baca said, adding that a sixth man was turned away on Friday on arrival by plane from El Salvador, and was sent back.
They are the first such cases of attempted illegal entry by Syrians into Honduras since the Central American country started compiling records in 2010.
However, the case appears to form part of a spate of such incidents.
Police in the former Dutch Caribbean colony of St Maarten on Saturday arrested three men they believe to be Syrians who arrived on a flight from Haiti and were traveling on false Greek passports.
In Paraguay, on Sunday police detained a Syrian man who was traveling on a stolen Greek passport.
Reports that at least one of the Paris attackers might have slipped into Europe among refugees and migrants registered in Greece prompted several Western countries to begin to question their willingness to take in refugees from war-torn Syria.
US House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence member Senator James Risch said he found the news “very troubling,” and wondered whether the men formed part of a militant sleeper cell to be planted in the US, or whether it was something far more innocent.
“It is very suspicious and I can tell you that the intelligence community is drilling down on these five right now,” Risch said, adding that US intelligence does not know the Syrians’ motive.
“So far they have not used the southern path to enter our very porous southern border. They haven’t done that in the past. This was clearly an attempt to do this by five Syrians, and what they had in mind after they got here, that remains to be seen,” he said.
Since last year, countries in South America, mainly Brazil and Argentina, have witnessed a significant increase in asylum-seekers in the region, particularly Syrians, the UN refugee agency said.
However, it is still rare for refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries to seek asylum after crossing the US’ southern border.
In Washington, Republicans are resisting US President Barack Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year.
“We received information from [fellow] police services that these five Syrians left Greece and passed through Turkey, Brazil, Argentina and San Jose in Costa Rica before finally reaching Tegucigalpa,” Baca said.
“They are normal Syrians,” Baca said, adding that there was nothing to indicate they were tied to the Paris attacks.
Television footage showed the men dressed in casual clothing and smiling as police officers escorted them at the airport. They were then piled into the back of a police pick-up truck, flanked by armed police officers.
Honduran newspaper La Prensa reported that the five men detained on Tuesday are aged from 23 to 33.
“Greek diplomats arrived in the terminal area and confirmed the men didn’t speak a word of Greek,” the report said.
The Honduran government said it had involved in the investigation.
Use of false passports is increasingly commonplace among Syrian refugees who often find themselves in other countries, having left their own documents behind in their rush to flee.
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