little snippet within Syria

[Erich]

my thoughts go out to the men/women that will probably have to make the venture into this zone........... actually my view it's about time we should of corralled Damascus from the start with a 30mm right up their stinking noses. so now it starts .......... 5 miles within

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Originally Posted by Erich

my thoughts go out to the men/women that will probably have to make the venture into this zone........... actually my view it's about time we should of corralled Damascus from the start with a 30mm right up their stinking noses. so now it starts .......... 5 miles within

Hey Erich. I'm not entirely sure on what's going on in Syria, the only thing I saw on the news is that their condeming a raid by US forces in an insurgent safe house, is there any more info on the situation. Thanks.

[Bluehawk]

Most current thing I've heard in public is that the US military has acknowledged the raid.

Tomorrow or the next day there should be an official press release about it from the DoD... if not still yet tonight.

Iraqi borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan are considered secure. With Turkey they are secure to the extent that the Kurds and Turks do not kill each other too much.

With Iran the border is a sieve, for a lot of good and bad reasons.

Syria...

It is a simple fact that Syria tried very hard from the beginning of GWOT to establish an intel back channel with the US, for their own self-protection.

The US State Dept. perceived this gesture, probably somewhat correctly albeit very shortsightedly, as Syria trying to barter valid intel for some recognition of Hamas and/or Hezbollah. The US could not officially accept the Syrian intel relationship because it would offend Israel... even if it would have (and it WOULD have!) helped secure Iraq's central & north western border.

The surge did not start working well until Anbar region began getting settled... but bad guy materiel and fighters keep coming across with, apparently, little if any effort on Syria's part (unlike Jordan and Saudi Arabia who are tough about it) to plug the gaps and tighten down on supply routes... which continues to threaten the alliance with Iraqi security forces now standing up against Al Qaeda locally.

I'm surprised that the raid was made, frankly... but not unhappy about it - except to say that if our strategists had been a tad more expansive in their thinking 6+ years ago, then they would have welcomed any actionable intel coming in from ANYONE, including Syria!

I am guessing this is another instance where our loyalty to Israel has gotten us in trouble... making raids such as this inevitable.

We'll see if there are any more of these to come, and HOW extensively the US wishes to escalate tensions with Syria on that flank.

[Amsel]

Good post.

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Thanks for the info Bluehawk. That was a lot more then what the news gave out.

[Erich]

Frankly the Syrian intel cannot be and will never be trusted. it was done back in the 1970's during the time when puny Arafat was making a name for himself by blowing up jets with the occupants inside. Syrai through thick and thin after their beating by Israel back in 67 has tried to take a negative and quite silent stand on anything going on in the mid-east, secretly backing in help for terrorist organizations, and what a perfect way to be protected through and behind long coat tails of the royal family.

We have been in Syria before 9/11 guys it was only a matter of time that something like this was going to go public and how perfect eh with elections just around the corner. It's really no secret that I still try to protect those love ones and friends that are working behind the lines in the M-d-e over the years

my original posting was not to alarm but what could be directed at us over the next weeks, with a possible storm of military employment being moved from central Iraq westward

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Okay, I think I understand. I don't think though that the general public will be too thrilled about the possible deployment or employment.

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by Vassili Zaitzev

Thanks for the info Bluehawk. That was a lot more then what the news gave out.

Syria was at least making an attempt to establish intel lines with us years ago, any one or more of which could easily have become truly valuable to our efforts, saved a lot of lives, and shortened the war.

Though unreliable, for obvious reasons, there are always always always those inside an enemy system who are willing to give the goods for the right reasons. We should have taken that opportunity, and probably are to some extent right now - which is how we got the intel to make the raid, no?

My hunch is that Syria wanted to avoid what has just happened - i.e. raids inside their borders by coalition forces. And, I think they also knew that the liberation of Iraq would be a bloodbath of Sunni and Shia, and that the onslaught of refugees would put their economic and security systems at risk - which it certainly has.

Syrian diplomats who were coming here trying to get something going back in the day pretty much got insulted at every turn in the media and in private too I assume, maybe justifiably in some cases. So, they gave up.

When the DoD news release does come out I'll try to remember to post it in this thread for people to see. It's all unclassified, but is usually truthful to the extent it can be without injuring OPSEC.

In our military black ops and spec ops I have pretty much boundless confidence. Our problems are usually with politicians... who dwell on what happened 30, 40 and 50 years ago as if that is exactly what would happen today under similar conditions.

[Venganza]

Originally Posted by Bluehawk

I am guessing this is another instance where our loyalty to Israel has gotten us in trouble... making raids such as this inevitable.

I agree completely with that, Bluehawk. Our near-total support of Israel has not exactly been a unmitigated success for the U.S. Although I support the existence of Israel (which if I supported it or not, is simply a fact, backed up by Israel's not so secret nuclear bombs), but it has simply gotten us in deeper as regards the Arab countries. I'm certainly not advocating abandoning Israel to Hamas and other Arab extremists, but more engagement with the Arabs (as opposed to invading them) might be a good thing. Even engaging more with Syria and pressuring them non-militarily might be helpful in terms of getting them to curtail or stop their support of the terrorists/extremists like Hezbollah and Hamas - this approach, with European assistance, seemed to work with Libya.

Venganza

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by Venganza

I agree completely with that, Bluehawk. Our near-total support of Israel has not exactly been a unmitigated success for the U.S. Although I support the existence of Israel (which if I supported it or not, is simply a fact, backed up by Israel's not so secret nuclear bombs), but it has simply gotten us in deeper as regards the Arab countries. I'm certainly not advocating abandoning Israel to Hamas and other Arab extremists, but more engagement with the Arabs (as opposed to invading them) might be a good thing. Even engaging more with Syria and pressuring them non-militarily might be helpful in terms of getting them to curtail or stop their support of the terrorists/extremists like Hezbollah and Hamas - this approach, with European assistance, seemed to work with Libya.

Venganza

Very well stated.

I doubt VERY much if our forces will engage very deeply, if at all, within Syria. It really is not necessary because we retain control of the air, and at least for now have Iraqi allies in Anbar, plus Jordan to their south and Turkey to their north. At this stage, we can put a very precise munition into a car window with an unmanned aircraft, from Nevada.

Hamas or Hezbollah might take it out on Israel again - but I don't worry about Israel being unequipped or indecisive as to handling their own police work.

[Bluehawk]

This is the morning's Associated Press article as reported by Council on Foreign Relations:
-------------------
By ZEINA KARAM and HUSSEIN MALLA – 3 hours ago

SUKKARIYEH, Syria (AP) —

Families in this Iraqi border village prepared to hold funerals Monday for eight people they say were killed when the U.S. military launched a rare attack in Syrian territory. Clergy washed the bodies as angry residents chanted, "May God's wrath fall on them."

The Syrian government said four U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown Sunday on the Sukkariyeh Farm about five miles inside the Syrian border. The government statement said eight people were killed, including four children.

A U.S. military official in Washington said Sunday that special forces conducted a raid in Syria that targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

The U.S. military in Iraq said it did not have any information about the incident. But the raid came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

In Sukkariyeh, villager Jumaa Ahmad al-Hamad told The Associated Press he was walking Sunday when he saw four helicopters, two of which landed.
"Shooting then started ringing for more than 10 minutes," al-Hamad said Monday. After the helicopters stopped firing and left the area, he and other villagers went to the site and discovered the bodies of his uncle, Dawoud al-Hamad, and four of his uncle's sons, who he said were killed in the raid.
Iraqi officials said they hoped the raid would not harm their relations with Syria, and Iran condemned the attack.

Syria called the raid a "serious aggression," and its Foreign Ministry summoned the charges d'affaires of the United States and Iraq in protest.

Syrian parliament member Suleiman Hadad called the raid "a last-ditch hit by the defeated and desperate" Bush administration, which is trying to "restore some of its lost dignity in the region."

Government newspapers also published scathing criticisms in Monday's editions. Tishin splashed its front pages with a headline denouncing the raid as a "U.S. war crime," while the Al-Baath newspaper described the attack in an editorial as a "stunning, shocking and unprecedented adventure."

"Even while it's preparing itself to leave the White House, the Bush administration seems determined to demonstrate its foolishness, and this is a dangerous indication of political madness and stupid arrogance," Al-Baath said.

The attack comes at time when Syria appears to be making some amends with the United States.

Though Syria has long been viewed by the U.S. as a destabilizing country in the Middle East, in recent months, Damascus has been trying to change its image and end years of global seclusion.

Its president, Bashar Assad, has pursued indirect peace talks with Israel, mediated by Turkey, and says he wants direct talks next year. Syria also has agreed to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon, a country it used to dominate both politically and militarily, and has worked harder at stemming the flow of militants into Iraq.

It also comes as the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been declining. A senior U.S. military intelligence official told the AP in July that it had been cut to an estimated 20 a month. That's a 50 percent decline from six months ago, and just a fifth of the estimated 100 foreign fighters who were infiltrating Iraq a year ago, according to the official.

The area targeted Sunday is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

Ninety percent of the foreign fighters enter through Syria, according to U.S. intelligence. Foreigners are some of the most deadly fighters in Iraq, trained in bomb-making and with small-arms expertise and more likely to be willing suicide bombers than Iraqis.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem accused the United States earlier this year of not giving his country the equipment needed to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq. He said Washington feared Syria could use such equipment against Israel.

Karam reported from Damascus, Malla from Sukkariyeh. Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.

[Bluehawk]

This is the morning Al Jazeera english language version of the incident.
-----------------------------------------
Syria has condemned an alleged US raid that killed at least eight people in the country's east, close to the border with Iraq, calling it an act of "serious aggression".

Damascus was considering its response to the attack, a spokesperson for the Syrian information ministry told Al Jazeera on Monday.

"No doubt there will be a reaction [from Syria] of some kind," Reem Haddad told Al Jazeera.

The US has not officially responded to Syria's accusation, but an unnamed US military official was reported by The Associated Press as saying that the raid by US special forces targeted al-Qaeda-linked foreign fighters who were moving through Syria into Iraq.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," he was quoted as saying.

The US military in Iraq said it did not have any information about the incident.

'Terrorist groups'

The raid targeted an area used by fighters responsible for cross-border attacks into Iraq, Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said on Monday.

"The attacked area was the scene of activities of terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq," he told the Reuters news agency.

"The latest of these groups ... killed 13 police recruits in an (Iraqi) border village. Iraq had asked Syria to hand over this group which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist activities."

Al-Dabbagh would not say who had carried it out.

"Iraq is always seeking distinguished relations with its sister Syria," he said.

"The presence of some anti-Iraq groups in Syria, which are supporting and participating in activities against Iraqis, would hinder improvement of these relations".

Syrian anger

Following the attack, the Syrian government summoned the senior US and Iraqi envoys to Damascus to protest against the raid, the Syrian Arab news agency (Sana) reported.

A Syrian government statement said: "Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions."

The statement also called for the Iraqi government to launch an investigation into the attack.

"This is a flagrant violation of the new [security] agreement between Iraq and the US," Haddad told Al Jazeera.

"Because one of the points of that agreement is that they do not attack bordering countries."

Workers killed

Syrian state television said four American helicopters raided the village of Sukariya - close to the town of Abu Kamal, 8km inside the Syrian border - before flying back towards Iraqi territory.

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

"Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 4:45pm local time [13:45 GMT] on Sunday," state television reported.
"American soldiers ... attacked a civilian building under construction and fired at workmen inside, causing eight deaths."

The government said that those killed in the raid were workers.

Akram Hameed, a man in his 40s who said he was injured in the attack while fishing in the Euphrates river at the time of the raid, told Syrian television he saw four helicopters coming from the border area under a heavy blanket of fire.

"One of the helicopters landed in an agricultural area and eight members disembarked," Hameed said.

"The firing lasted about 15 minutes and when I tried to leave the area on my motorcycle, I was hit by a bullet in the right arm about 20 metres away."

Syria TV showed what it said was the injured wife of the building's guard, in bed in hospital with a tube in her nose, saying that two helicopters landed and two remained in the air during the attack.

US incursion

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

But Syrian analysts say the demands are unfounded.

"Syria has one million and a half refugees - it is impossible to make it a full-proof frontier," Samir al-Taqi, director of the Orient Centre for International Studies, a Syrian think-tank, told Al Jazeera.

"Syria has requested technical assistance to be able to control [the border with Iraq] and the Americans were reluctant," he said.

The Americans failed to reply to all the requests by the Syrian government and to allow the Iraqis to build up security co-ordination across the border."

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there have been some instances in which American troops crossed areas of the 600km border in pursuit of fighters. Israeli aircraft have also in the past violated Syria's airspace.

'Foreign fighters'

Sunday's alleged raid comes just days after the commander of US forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

US Major-General John Kelly said on Thursday that Iraq's western borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan were fairly tight as a result of good policing by security forces in those countries but that Syria was a "different story".

"The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side," Kelly said. "We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement."

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 Sunday's incident.

The area targeted in 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 government.

[Bluehawk]

And here is the Agence France Presse version.
-------------------------------------------------------
DAMASCUS (AFP) —

Syria protested vehemently on Monday over what it said was a US attack on a border village that left eight civilians dead, with the official press branding it a "war crime."

"The American forces from Iraq committed cold-blooded murder," the government newspaper Tishrin wrote. "They committed a war crime in killing eight Syrian civilians in a quiet village."

Official media reported that American helicopter-borne troops from Iraq launched an assault on a building site Sunday in the village of Al-Sukkiraya, which lies just eight kilometres (five miles) from the border.

The US military in Iraq said in a statement it does not have "any information" on the the incident, which if confirmed would be the first of its kind into Syrian territory.

Damascus has summoned the official US and Iraqi representatives in protest, the official SANA news agency said, describing the dead as a father and his four children, a couple and another man.

Syrian state television broadcast pictures of the scene, showing a building site with bloodstains on the ground, and the bodies of victims lying in the morgue.

"Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 1645 (1445 GMT) on Sunday. American soldiers attacked a civilian building under construction and fired at workmen inside, causing eight deaths," official media said.

"Syria condemns and denounces this act of aggression and US forces will bear the responsibility for any consequences," SANA quoted an unidentified 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."

Foreign Minister Walid Muallem is due in London for a visit on Monday.

"This American aggression illustrates the stupidity of the administration of (US President George W.) Bush," Tishrin said. "The Bush administration must acknowledge the war crimes it has committed in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria."

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman Commander Darryn James said there was "no response" from the US Department of Defence.

The Iraqi defence ministry has also refused to comment.

US commanders say Syria is the main transit point for foreign jihadists crossing into Iraq and have blamed Damascus for turning a blind eye to the problem but Iraqi officials have said Syria has been boosting border security.

Al-Sukkiraya is on the Euphrates river across the border from the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim, a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and other insurgents. US commanders have regularly said the area around Qaim is a transit point for foreign fighters.

"I heard shooting, I ran to get my son and they shot me," one woman lying in a hospital bed told Syrian state television in footage aired on Monday.

"I was fishing and I saw four helicopters. They started shooting like the rain," said another man, his arm in a bandage. "I saw eight soldiers coming out (of a helicopter) with weapons... I tried to flee and I was hit."
Last month, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told Bush that Iran and Syria -- long targets of US blame over the deadly unrest in the country -- no longer pose a problem.

However, on October 16 Iraqi forces arrested seven Syrian "terrorist" suspects at a checkpoint near the city of Baquba, a hub of Al-Qaeda fighters, the Iraqi defence ministry said.

Syria's first ambassador to Iraq in 26 years took up his post in Baghdad this month, marking the official end of more than two decades of icy relations.

On September 28, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed she had met her Syrian counterpart to discuss Middle East peace efforts despite renewed criticism from Washington over Syrian policies.

Their talks came after Bush slammed Damascus in an addresss to the UN General Assembly, saying regimes like Syria and Iran "continue to sponsor terror."

Washington has also accused Damascus of failing to give adequate cooperation to the International Atomic Energy Agency in its investigation into a mystery facility bombed by Israel in September last year that US officials have charged was a nuclear plant.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by Bluehawk

With Iran the border is a sieve, for a lot of good and bad reasons.

I can tell you one thing. It is a very wiered feeling to be standing on one hill and looking over to the other hill and seeing Iranian military forces looking right back at you...

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

I can tell you one thing. It is a very wiered feeling to be standing on one hill and looking over to the other hill and seeing Iranian military forces looking right back at you...

You may have just put your finger on the eventual DMZ of GWOT.