Truemors
THE US is coming in for increasing criticism for the alleged air attack inside Syrian borders on Sunday that left eight civilians dead. The Syrian Foreign Minister has appeared on BBC tv calling it "an act of terrorist aggression" by the US, as families today hold funerals for the dead, including four children.
The White House is yet to confirm or deny the reports.
SUKKARIYEH, Syria (AP) -- Families in this village near the Iraqi border buried loved ones Monday who they said were killed when the U.S. military launched a rare attack in Syrian territory. During the funerals, angry residents shouted anti-American slogans and carried banners reading: "Down with Bush and the American enemy.''
The Syrian government said four U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown Sunday, killing eight people in the village of Sukkariyeh -- about five miles inside the Syrian border.
A U.S. military official in Washington confirmed Sunday that special forces had 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.
Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, described the raid as "cowboy politics,'' Speaking in London, al-Moallem said of the U.S. raid. He warned that if there was a repeat "we would defend our territories.''
The attack is another sign that the United States is aggressively launching military raids across the borders of Afghanistan and Iraq to destroy insurgent sanctuaries. In Pakistan, U.S. missile strikes have killed at least two senior al-Qaida operatives this year and ramped up the threat to groups suspected of plotting attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan and terror strikes in the West.
Iran condemned the attack as did Russia, which has had close ties with Syria since Soviet times.
Comments (0)