Sunday, October 26, 2008

Syria Accuses US of Deadly Raid; Massacre Results in the Killing of Eight Civilians

Monday, October 27, 2008
02:15 Mecca time, 23:15 GMT

Syria accuses US of deadly raid

Syria has accused the United States of killing at least eight people in a helicopter raid in the country's east, close to the border with Iraq.

The government summoned the US and Iraqi charge d'affaires to Damascus to protest against the raid, the Syrian Arab news agency (Sana) reported on Sunday.

Syrian state television said American helicopters raided the village of Sukariya, which lies 550km northeast of Damascus.

"Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 4:45pm local time [13:45 GMT] on Sunday," state television and Sana news agency reported.

"Syria condemns and denounces this act of aggression and US forces will bear the responsibility for any consequences," Sana quoted an official as saying.

"Syria also demands that the Iraqi government accept its responsibilities and launches an immediate inquiry following this dangerous violation and forbids the use of Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Syria," the official said.

During the raids, two of the helicopters landed and dropped off eight US soldiers, who then entered a house, Syrian media reported.

"American soldiers ... attacked a civilian building under construction and fired at workmen inside, causing eight deaths," the reports said.

The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory, Sana reported.

US reaction

Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Hughes, a spokesman for US forces in western Iraq, said the US division that operates on the Iraqi side of the border was not involved in the incident.

A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said he had no immediate information on the reported strike but would check further while the White House and CIA declined to comment.

If the raid is confirmed, it would be the first time that American forces have carried out an attack on Syrian soil.

The US and the US-backed Iraqi government say Damascus is not doing enough to stop anti-US fighters, including those from al-Qaeda, from crossing the border into Iraq.

The area targeted by Sunday's raid lies close to the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which in the past has been a crossing point for fighters, weapons and money used to fuel the armed Sunni opposition against Iraq's Shia-led government.

Thabet Salem, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that the US had appeared to have taken the building workers for infiltrators.

"The Syrian government will be very worried because from the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003 until now, nothing has happened [in Syria]. There have maybe been a few cases, but nothing like eight people killed inside Syria," he said.

"It will raise questions as to why this is happening at this moment - towards the end of the current US administration.

"Syria has deployed large numbers [of security staff] and they have checkpoints every four kilometres along the border. The Syrians have, according to my information, stopped five or six thousand people trying to cross the Syria-Iraq border throughout the last few years."

Iraq security

The raid comes 10 days after Iraqi forces arrested seven Syrian "terrorist" suspects at a checkpoint near the city of Baquba, a base for al-Qaeda fighters, the Iraqi government said.

But last month, Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, told his US counterpart George Bush that Iran and Syria no longer pose a problem to Iraqi security.

Syria's first ambassador to Iraq in 26 years took up his post in Baghdad this month, bringing more than two decades of discord between the nations to an end.

In September, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said she had met Walid Muallem, Syria’s foreign minister, to discuss Middle East peace efforts.

Syrian and American diplomats said the talks touched on Iraq, Lebanon and Middle East peace negotiations.

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