Warning Shot across the Syrian Ship of State’s Bow,
Reminding Syria The U.S. is Still On Its Eastern Border,
At least until Barack Hussein Obama is sworn into Office,
After Which Syria & Iran Will Hold Sway in The Middle E ast,
As America vanishes in the western sunset
as a dying Eagle!
From 1932 to 2009 I had the privilege of not living in Socialism!
October 27, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt From the Times On Line
October 27, 2008
Iraq defends US-Iraq cross-border raid into Syria
Deborah Haynes and Jenny Booth
Iraq today defended launching a joint raid with the United States across the border into neighbouring Syria, claiming that the target was a site used by terror groups planning attacks against it.
Syria has protested vigorously about last night’s raid, claiming that four children were among the eight to die after four military helicopters landed at sunset near al-Sukkari farm, five miles inside the Syrian border.
The Syrian ambassador to London described the raid as outrageous, and an embassy spokesman demanded to know why Iraq had not simply informed it that its territory was being used by hostile groups. Iraq, however, responded by saying that it had warned Syria about insurgency activity, but that no action had been taken.
Jihad Makdissi, the press attache at the Syrian embassy in London, said:
“If (the United States) have any proof of any insurgency, instead of applying the law of the jungle and penetrating, unprovoked, a sovereign country, they should come to the Syrians first and share this information.”
But Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, retorted: “The attacked area was the scene of activities of terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq.
“The latest of these groups… killed 13 police recruits in an (Iraqi) border village. Iraq has asked Syria to hand over this group which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist operations.”
The Syrian Foreign Ministry has summoned the US
and Iraqi ambassadors to Damascus to protest about the operation.
The incident is expected to dominate discussion when Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister, meets David Miliband, his British counterpart, in London later today.
A joint news conference after the meeting was today cancelled at the last minute as “inappropriate”. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that both sides had been concerned that the press briefing would have been dominated by questions about the US raid.
Mr Miliband, as the representative of America’s principal ally in Iraq, might have found it awkward to appear alongside Mr al-Muallem at a time when Syria is condemning what it describes as an act of “serious aggression” by the US.
In a statement carried by the Syrian state news agency, Damascus claimed that the helicopters targeted a civilian building under construction, and “opened fire on workers inside the building, including the wife of the building guard, leading to the [death] of eight civilians”.
Suleiman Ghadban, head of the hospital in the nearby town of Bou Kamal, said: “The hospital received seven bodies aged between 16 and 50 and three wounded, including the mother of the [deceased] family.”
Footage from Reuters television has shown the aftermath of the raid – a truck riddled with bulletholes, and bloodstains and spent cartridge cases on the ground at a half-acre fenced farm building. Osama Malla Hameed, a neighbour, said that four helicopters converged on the farm from different directions. Two hovered over it while two landed for a period of less than five minutes, and soldiers got out and fired shots, injuring his nephew in the hand.
Sami al-Khiyami, the Syrian ambassador to London, said: “This is an outrageous raid which is against international law. It is a terrible crime. I don’t know the political meaning of it.” He said that Syria was waiting for “clarifications from the Americans” before deciding whether to lodge a complaint at the United Nations Security Council.
US forces based in western Iraq denied that they were involved in the incident, suggesting that it may have been carried out by a special unit ouside the regular US command structure.
While the Pentagon did not confirm the attack, a US military spokesman said that the raid targeted a network of foreign fighters based at the farm. “We are taking matters into our hands,” the unnamed US official said.
Mr al-Dabbagh refused to say who carried out the raid. “Iraq is always seeking distinguished relations with its sister Syria.
The presence of some anti-Iraq groups in Syria, which are supporting and participating in activities against Iraqis, would hinder improvement of these operations,” he said.
America accuses Syria of failing to do enough to stop militants, including al-Qaeda operatives, from infiltrating over the border. The Bou Kamal border area, close to the farm in eastern Syria, is the country’s main crossing point into Iraq.
Last week the commander of US forces in western Iraq said that US troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which was far more laxly policed than Iraq’s borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
“The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side,” Major-General John Kelly said.
“We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement.”
The Syrian Foreign Minister accused the US this year of not giving his country the equipment that it needed to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.
He said that the US feared Syria could use such equipment against Israel.
The reported attack comes at a particularly sensitive time, as Baghdad and Washington struggle to sign an agreement to allow US troops to stay in Iraq beyond this year. Neighbouring countries, including Syria and Iran, have voiced concern that such an accord would enable the US military to attack other countries from Iraqi territory, a charge that US officials deny.
Begin Excerpt DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Syria, Hizballah on alert for Israeli action after US raid
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
October 27, 2008, 12:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that Damascus and the Lebanese Hizballah have alerted their forces to a possible Israeli strike against Hizballah’s arms smuggling routes, supply sources, and stocks, using as a precedent the US cross-border raid which killed eight people at an al Qaeda base in northern Syria Sunday, Oct. 26.
Those sources report that Syrian president Bashar Assad and Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah fear that US-Israeli military synchronization for Israel’s attack on Syria’s nuclear reactor in September 2007 may have been repeated in Sunday’s American raid at Abu Kemal.
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, intelligence analysts in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran have concluded that US Air Force planes, specifically those providing an umbrella for the helicopter-borne raid, flew over Israel before reaching Syrian skies.
They point out that, on the morning of the attack, Israel’s military intelligence chief, Brig.
Amos Yadlin, appeared before the cabinet session in Jerusalem with an unusually grave assessment of the military collaboration between Damascus and Hizballah.
He disclosed that Syria had become “Hizballah’s arms warehouse” and was catering to “every single Hizballah wish for strategic resources.”
Syria has given Hizballah, DEBKAfile reveals, medium-range surface rockets, radar systems and anti-air missiles.
Yadlin reported that “Assad trusts Hizballah more than his own army.” Its operatives work out of Syria without any restraint.
Damascus and Hizballah find room for anxiety in three more events:
1. Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazy met the UNIFIL commander Gen.
Claudio Graziano last week and put him on notice that Israel would no longer put up with the ongoing Syrian violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which imposed an embargo on arms supplies to Hizballah.
2. Before Sunday’s cabinet meeting, defense minister Ehud Barak and Gen.
Ashkenazi put their heads together on ways to halt these violations.
3. Barak then phoned Gen. Graziano to reiterate that Israel had run out of patience with Syrian arms smuggling to Hizballah.
Israel normally liaises with the UNIFIL commander through the OC Northern Command, Brig. Gad Eisenkott. Direct high-level contacts are rare.
All these pointers to possible Israeli military action in the steps of the American raid have made Damascus and Hizballah’s leadership anxious; they fear Israel has reached breaking-point and may no longer choose to look the other way on Hizballah’s massive rearmament
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