americas war of terror: now it's syria's turn..

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americas war of terror: now it's syria's turn..

Postby bigearth » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:33 am

'US helicopter raid' inside Syria

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The scene of the raid

US military helicopters have carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people including four children, Syrian officials say.

The official Syrian news agency Sana said the attack took place in the Abu Kamal border area, in eastern Syria.

Damascus has condemned the strike as a "serious violation" of its territory.

The US has neither confirmed nor denied the incident. It has previously accused Syria of allowing foreign militants into Iraq.

Syria has summoned the US and Iraqi envoys in Damascus to protest at the raid.

"Syria condemns this aggressive act and holds American forces responsible for this aggression and all of its repercussions," a government official said.

If confirmed, the raid would be the first known attack by US forces inside Syrian territory, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Its timing is curious, coming right at the end of the Bush administration's period of office and at a moment when many of America's European allies - like Britain and France - are trying to broaden their ties with Damascus, our correspondent adds.

Crossing point

"Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 1645 local time [1345 GMT] on Sunday," Sana said.

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"American soldiers" emerged from helicopters and "attacked a civilian building under construction and opened fire on workers inside - including the wife of the building guard - leading to [the deaths] of eight civilians", it added.

"The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory," Sana said.

The dead include a man, his four children and a married couple, the Syrian report said, without giving details of the children's ages.

The village was named as Sukkiraya, 8km (5 miles) from the Iraqi border.

A US military spokesman was unable to confirm or deny the reports, saying it was a "developing situation".

But later the Associated Press news agency quoted an unnamed US military official in Washington as saying that American special forces had attacked foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official said.

The area is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money travelling into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

Washington has in the past accused Damascus of turning a blind eye to the problem.

The Iraqi city's mayor, Farhan al-Mahalawi, told Reuters news agency that US helicopters had struck a village on the Syrian side of the border, after which Syrian troops surrounded the site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 692153.stm
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Postby bigearth » Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:52 am

Image

Syria condemns deadly 'US raid'

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US troops have on occasion crossed areas of Syria's 600km border in pursuit of fighters [AFP]

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 on Sunday 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.

In video
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US raid on Syrian soil

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, 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 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.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middl ... 31223.html
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Postby bigearth » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:15 pm

Syria hits out at 'terrorist' US

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Walid Muallem: We put the responsibility on the American government

Syria's foreign minister has accused the US of an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression" over what it says was a helicopter raid on its territory.

Walid Muallem said Sunday's attack saw four US aircraft travel eight miles inside Syrian airspace from Iraq and kill eight unarmed civilians on a farm.

He said those who died were a father and his three children, a farm guard and his wife, and a fisherman.


The US has not confirmed or denied the alleged raid.

However, a unnamed US official was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that its forces had mounted a "successful" raid against foreign fighters threatening US forces in Iraq.

The US has previously accused Syria of allowing militants into Iraq, but Mr Muallem insisted his country was trying to tighten border controls.

'An opportunity'

Speaking at a news conference in London, Mr Muallem said the raid on the town of Abu Kamal was "not a mistake" and that he had urged the Iraqi government to investigate.

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Syrians mourn their killed relatives in the village of Sukkiraya
Three children and a married couple were said to be among the dead



"We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression. We put the responsibility on the American government," he told reporters following talks with UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

He added: "All of them [the victims] are civilians, Syrian, unarmed and they are on the Syrian territories.

"Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression."

Asked if Syria would use force if a similar operation was mounted, he said: "As long as you are saying if, I tell you, if they do it again, we will defend our terrorities."

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Referring to the US presidential election, he said: "We hope the coming administration will learn the mistakes of this administration."

Mr Muallem and Mr Miliband were scheduled to hold a joint press conference, but Mr Miliband withdrew. The UK government has declined to comment on the raid.

The US official quoted by AFP said: "Look when you've got an opportunity, an important one, you take it.

"That's what the American people would expect, particularly when it comes to foreign fighters going into Iraq, threatening our forces."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 693583.stm
. is it a wise man, who knows that he is not wise
. it's good to have cynicism but not be cynical
. the more truth you live with, in your life, the stronger you are
. intelligence is merely an attitude to knowledge and learning
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Postby bigearth » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:18 pm

bigearth wrote:The US official quoted by AFP said: "Look when you've got an opportunity, an important one, you take it.

"That's what the American people would expect, particularly when it comes to foreign fighters going into Iraq, threatening our forces."


so the american people "expect" dead innocents???


btw, never trust anyone who starts off sentence with the word "look.."
. is it a wise man, who knows that he is not wise
. it's good to have cynicism but not be cynical
. the more truth you live with, in your life, the stronger you are
. intelligence is merely an attitude to knowledge and learning
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Re: americas war of terror: now it's syria's turn..

Postby Spiro C. Thiery » Wed Nov 15, 2017 4:50 am

RIers: What do we make of it when fake news finds its way onto the Beeb? What does it mean and what can we expect from it?

Raqqa’s dirty secret
13 November 2017 By Quentin Sommerville and Riam Dalati
The BBC has uncovered details of a secret deal that let hundreds of IS fighters and their families escape from Raqqa, under the gaze of the US and British-led coalition and Kurdish-led forces who control the city.

A convoy included some of IS’s most notorious members and – despite reassurances – dozens of foreign fighters. Some of those have spread out across Syria, even making it as far as Turkey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... rty_secret


from June:
Video Emerges Of US Allowing ISIS Fighters To Escape Safely In Syria
Jun 14, 2017
Authored by Darius Shahtamasebi via TheAntiMedia.org

With numerous distractions unfolding on the newly released reality TV show that is “Keeping Up with the Trump Administration,” it may surprise readers to learn that the U.S. is using the terror group ISIS as a pawn in its depraved foreign policy.

Video footage obtained by Al-Masdar appears to show convoys of ISIS fighters fleeing the Syrian city of Raqqa untouched by the U.S. military, which is currently bombing that exact location. As Al-Masdar notes, despite having Kurdish and American drones hovering around the city of Raqqa, U.S. bombs are nowhere to be seen as hundreds of fighters pass safely. The release of this footage comes on the heels of accusations from both Russia and Iran that the U.S. is colluding with ISIS to allow the group’s safe passage into areas controlled by the Syrian government.

Iran claims to have direct proof but thus far has not released it. Even if Russia and Iran don’t have any secret documents that directly expose this collusion, the fact remains that we don’t necessarily need them.

After all, this is exactly how ISIS grew exponentially in Syria in the first instance – as a direct result of U.S. foreign policy strategy. In 2012, a classified Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted the rise of ISIS, something actively encouraged by the U.S. establishment. The report stated:

“If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria… and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

Further, leaked audio of former Secretary of State John Kerry shows he knew ISIS was gaining momentum in Syria, and that in turn, the U.S. hoped this would bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the negotiating table.

In recent times, the safe passage of ISIS fighters to areas under the control of the Syrian government has been an unspoken but official strategy and has been the reality on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

Late last year, Anti-Media reported on an anonymous military-diplomatic official’s claims that the United States was allowing safe passage to Syria for ISIS fighters exiting Mosul, Iraq – even though the U.S. was supposedly waging an offensive to defeat ISIS in the area. As we noted, acknowledging the admittedly undesirable, questionable nature of the anonymous source:

“An anonymous source claiming to a Russian newspaper something as conspiratorial as the U.S. directly aiding ISIS militants may seem a bit dubious, but since the offensive was launched on Monday of this week, this has been the reality on the ground.

“According to Army Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, as reported by anti-Russian newspaper, the Guardian, ISIS militants are already fleeing Mosul to Syria. This was further confirmed by the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, who said that if ISIS were forced out of Mosul, they would likely go on to Syria.”

Not long after, ISIS launched an offensive into a very strategic area in Syria called Deir ez-Zor, battling through Syrian government defenses. The most horrifying part of this offensive was the fact that, asnoted by the Guardian, the ISIS fighters who successfully broke through government defense lines in Syria were “primarily reinforcements coming over the border from Iraq’s Anbar province.”

Deir ez-Zor is not outside the U.S. military’s strike range capacity. This is the same city that was attacked by the American-led coalition in September of last year – an attack that targeted Syrian troops for over an hour, paving the way for a timely ISIS offensive. Yet when it comes to hundreds of reinforcements raging through the Iraqi border into Syria, the U.S. military is on a brief vacation.

We were told Raqqa was to be ISIS’ last stronghold in Syria, but this is clearly not true. In order for the U.S. to ultimately put pressure on the Syrian government, the real prize is not Raqqa but a combination of two very strategic locations that are very heavily interlinked.

As explained by Gulf News:

“There, a complex confrontation is unfolding, with far more geopolitical import and risk. Daesh [ISIS] is expected to make its last stand not in Raqqa but in an area that encompasses the borders with Iraq and Jordan and much of Syria’s modest oil reserves, making it important in stabilising Syria and influencing its neighbouring countries.

“Whoever lays claim to the sparsely populated area in this 21st-century version of the Great Game not only will take credit for seizing what is likely to be Daesh’s last patch of a territorial caliphate in Syria, but also will play an important role in determining Syria’s future and the post-war dynamics of the region.”

And this is ultimately the problem for the U.S.-led coalition of anti-Assad (and anti-Iranian) nations. The behind-closed-doors official rationale for targeting Syria’s government for regime change was to undermine Iranian influence in the region, according to Hillary Clinton’s email archive. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and the other Gulf States have long feared that a fully dominated Shia-led bloc of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon could completely overthrow the regional balance of power. They have opposed such a development at all costs.

As Gulf News explains, the Iranians are in the process of fully implementing this Shia bridge, known as the “Shia Crescent”:

“The contested area also includes desert regions farther south with several border crossings, among them the critical highway connecting Damascus and Baghdad — coveted by Iran as a land route to Lebanon and its ally, the Hezbollah militia.”

This is why the U.S. military has set up a training base at the Aal-Tanf border crossing. If the Syrian government were to retake the area and open it up under its control, they would be able to directly link Iran to Syria and the rest of its allies, including Iraq and Lebanon.

This is also why the U.S. military has been engaging in illegal acts of aggression against Iranian-backed militias operating in the area — to defend this position.

Further, the Syrian government’s outpost in Deir ez-Zor is isolated, hence why these two offensives are running in tandem. They both rely on the liberation of the other to have any real value to the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies.

As fascinating as the Comey testimony spectacle has been (don’t forget to tune in for tomorrow’s scandal of anonymous leaks and misspelled tweets), the real scandal lies in the fact that the U.S. is nowopenly siding with ISIS while allowing the terrorists safe passage into parts of Syria so that these extremists can battle a secular government. The U.S. is moments away from an all-out confrontation with Iran (and Russia, a nuclear power).

Don’t expect the corporate media to report on these damning facts anytime soon, as the public continues to sleepwalk into a global powder keg of deceit, death, and destruction.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-1 ... fely-syria
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