27/10/2008
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem on Monday accused the United States of 'Terrorist Aggression' over a deadly weekend raid on a village near the Syria-Iraq border that killed eight civilians.
"We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression. We put the responsibility on the American government," he told a press conference in London, after talks with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
"Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression," he added, in the first comments by a Syrian minister since the reported attack in in the village of Al-Sukkiraya, eight kilometers from the border.
Asked if Syria would use force if the Americans mounted a similar operation again, he said: "As long as you are saying if, I tell you, if they do it again, we will defend our territories."
Earlier Monday a US official in Washington said US forces crossed into Syria Sunday in a raid against foreign fighters, but did not dispute Syrian accounts that airborne troops had assaulted a site.
The Syrian minister said that four American helicopters had crossed the border. Two of them landed at the village site, while the other two aircraft protected them. Soldiers came out of the helicopters on the ground and started shooting at civilians working on farms, including a father and his three children and a fisherman, he said.
"All of them are civilians, Syrian, unarmed and they are on the Syrian territories," he told reporters.
Moallem hoped the result of next week's US presidential election can help restore the United States' global reputation, learning the "mistakes" of the Bush era. "I hope that the American people would elect the president who can bring good reputation for US in the world, not like this reputation we are witnessing for this administration," Moallem told reporters in London.
"We hope the coming administration will learn the mistakes of this administration," he added, after talks with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Earlier on Monday, Syria accused the United States of "applying the law of the jungle." Jihad Makdissi, a spokesman for the Syrian embassy in London, also said it was "outrageous" that a UN Security Council member like the United States should behave in this way.
"In the midst of the crisis they did not do this sort of act of aggression. Why now when the security situation in Iraq is getting better?" he told BBC radio. "It's unjustifiable."
Hezbollah Condemns US Attack in Syria as 'Flagrant'
Lebanon Condemns US Raid in Syria
"...What better way to move the American people back to a neoconservative view than by provoking a Syrian/American conflict days before one of the most fateful elections in American history. Most Americans are fed up with foreign wars, unbelievable debt from those wars, and economic failure. Yet if we can provoke Syria into retaliating against the United States somehow, then we can terrify the American people enough right now before the elections. Then they will vote from fear, not from the perspective of pragmatism and realism, and certainly not from a position of vision and hope. It has happened before in history..." Source
US Choppers Attack Syrian village, Kill 8 Civilians
Hanan Awarekeh Readers Number : 170
Many questions were raised on Monday after the US attack that took place Sunday night against a Syrian village to kill eight civilians, including a father and his four sons. What are the goals of this violation against an independent country? Not to mention that the ground of another Arab neighboring country was used in this attack.
A Syrian diplomat called a U.S. helicopter strike on a Syrian village near the border with Iraq on Sunday a "heinous crime," adding that Syria reserves the right to respond accordingly.
Eight civilians were killed in the strike, which Syria said targeted a civilian building under construction IN the village of Al-Sukkiraya, around 550 kilometers northeast of the capital in the Abu Kamal area.
"This administration ... has proved to be irrational and they have no respect for international law or human rights. We expect a clarification, and of course Syria reserves the right to respond accordingly in the proper way," Syria's press attache in London, Jihad Makdissi, told the BBC.
The martyred citizens were identified as Daoud Mohammad al-Abdullah and his 4 sons, Ahmad Khalefa, Ali Abbas and his wife in addition to wounding another citizen.
A U.S. military official, who confirmed the strike, claimed Sunday that the attack targeted elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network and that due to Syrian inaction the U.S. was now "taking matters into our own hands."
Makdissi condemned the attack, saying "if they (the U.S.) 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," the BBC reported.
The Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported that Syria has also called on the Iraqi government to carry out an immediate inquiry into the attack and to ensure that Iraq was not used for "aggression against Syria."
A government statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency said Sunday that the attack occurred at the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles (eight kilometers) inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction, firing at the workers inside shortly before sundown, the statement said.
SYRIA HOLDS US, IRAQ RESPONSIBLE
Syria's Foreign Ministry said it summoned the charges d'affaires of the United States and Iraq to protest the strike. It holds the US forces responsible for this aggression and its repercussions, and calls the Iraqi government to assume its responsibilities and make an immediate investigation into this dangerous violation and prevent using the Iraqi lands from launching aggression on Syria.
"Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions. Syria also calls on the Iraqi government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch and immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria," the statement said.
Syrian state television late Sunday aired footage that showed blood stains on the floor of a site under construction, the wooden beams used to mold concrete strewn on the ground. Akram Hameed, one of the injured who said he was fishing in the Euphrates, 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," the man in his 40s 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 meters (yards) away," he said.
On Thursday, the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq claimed in a briefing with Pentagon reporters that US occupation troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, from where some fighters were continuing to enter Iraq.
US raid in Syria spooks Iran
By Kaveh L AfrasiabiAsia Times
"The incursion by US forces into Syria from Iraq reinforces the view in Iran that the pending security agreement between Baghdad and Washington is not simply an internal matter for Iraqis to decide, but rather a regional issue that calls for direct input by Iraq's neighbors. Worse, Tehran fears that the US action is a dress rehearsal for a strike against its "terrorist" Revolutionary Guards......"
COMMENT:
Using the balls language of the PP "Anal-ysist", (who crtisized welcoming Abbas in Damuscuss and the Syrian-Israeli indirect talk, and the openning of Syrian Embassy in Baghdad being signs that Syria would sell hamas, and Hezbullah and divorse Iran, and accept a permanant US present in Iraq) I would say, Because Assad has "Ball" he refused Usrael's poisoned carrot, therefore, the are trying the stick.
Readers visting PP remember KHARA (The other Syria "lover"), statements on Syria, saying somthing in Puplic, and doing the opposit in secret.
In puplic, Syria went to Anapolis, to Paris, and held indirect talks with Israel in Turkey,
In secret
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What could lie behind Syria raid?
ReplyDeleteBy Jonathan Marcus
Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News
Syria has said American troops carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people - if the claims are true then this will be the first military incursion by the US into Syrian territory from Iraq.
Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Muallem met US officials at the UN
But 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.
Whatever the local military factors involved in this US operation, it would be unthinkable to imagine that an incursion into Syria would not require a policy decision at a high-level.
The movement of insurgents and foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq has long been a bone of contention between Damascus and Washington.
The US argument has always been that the Syrians are not doing enough to control the border. The Syrians have always countered that they are unfairly being blamed for turmoil inside Iraq that is not of their making.
Quite apart from their differences over Iraq, Washington sees Syria as unhelpful in Lebanon and as far too friendly with Iran.
While there have been relatively high-level contacts between the two governments - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meeting the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly just a few weeks ago - they have hardly generated any warmth.
Washington has even been lukewarm to Turkey's efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and Syria.
Nicolas Sarkozy (r) has sought to warm relations with his Syrian counterpart
All of this is in marked contrast to European efforts to engage the Syrians.
With French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the lead, a number of European countries have sought to bring Syria in from the cold.
But despite glimmerings of dissent from the State Department, the Bush administration has held firm to its policy of no substantive talks with Syria unless - as the Americans put it - Damascus decides to take a more "positive role" in the region.
With the Bush administration on the way out, this US military incursion may represent something of a parting shot against the Syrians.
It's clear that if Senator Barrack Obama were to win the White House, his key advisers are among the strongest advocates of engaging with Damascus across a broad spectrum of issues.
shocking blackmail
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