US troops conduct op inside Syria?
Hot from the presses:
Quote:
U.S. military helicopters attacked an area along Syria's border with Iraq Sunday, killing eight people, the Syrian government said, condemning what it called serious aggression.
A government statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency said 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.
Edit: Now there appears to be anonymous confirmation:
Quote:
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - U.S. military helicopters attacked territory inside Syria close to its border with Iraq Sunday, killing eight people in a strike the Syrian government condemned as "serious aggression."
A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq in an area where the Americans have been unable to shut it down because it was out of the military's reach.
"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.
Something deeper happening in Syria ?
Bill Roggio's report is here - hat tip to the result if what is reported is true.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...in_syria_d.php
Reactions and news reports have been generally predictable - e.g., see these LATimes Blogs.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/baby...whats-beh.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/baby...vows-to-r.html
My personal take on the Syrian diplomatic response was that it seemed restrained. Yup, the "round up the usual suspects" rhetoric, but also a "we want to iron out this wrinkle in the road" approach.
Might the raid have something to do with this (unrelated ??) news item from Syria:
Quote:
SYRIA: Al Qaeda mastermind said to be captured
An intriguing morsel about the mysterious leader of a ferocious militant group has been floating around the Lebanese and Syrian media this weekend.
According to a report in the Arab-language Syrian newspaper Al Liwaa, Syrian officials captured the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Fatah al Islam two months ago in Syria.
The report, summarized in English here, says that Shaker Abssi, a former Libyan air force pilot turned radical Islamist, was captured in the poor Meliha district of southern Damascus and hauled off to prison. ...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/baby...-al-qaeda.html
Perhaps, I am too influenced by Bob Baer's new book on Iran (which is a current read); but was there some Syrian back-channelling going on. After all, AQ-Iraq is scarcely a friend of things Shia and Iranian. Just a thought.
JMM, I truly appreciate the massive amount of work you do
in obtaining and posting many valuable and informative links on this board.
However, after viewing the appalling ignorance and crass stupidity displayed by many commenting at the LA Times links above, I've been forced to move my Acme Industries Portable Yardarm [® Tomsyl] to place it under the early morning Sun in order to take to the bottle at this hour...
Please, in future, have pity on the geriatric set. :o
I don't think the statement that the
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DaveDoyle
...
Administration officials declined to say whether the emerging application of self-defense could lead to strikes against camps inside Iran that have been used to train Shiite “special groups” that have fought with the American military and Iraqi security forces. (from the NYT link from JMM99)
doctrine is 'emerging' is correct. The Times is a bit behind the curve on that, that's been the doctrine for some time -- it's just rather selectively applied. Logically and correctly so. It's applied for very high value targets where a positive impact is probable, a specific and achievable outcome can be obtained or to place a little pressure on someone to clean up their act. Some make the news, some do not.
As for Iran, there are and have been rumors that's already occurring:
Quote:
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year.
LINK
Yeah, it's Seymour but he wasn't alone in spouting it -- so did the Cockburns and some others. True? Who knows. Possible? Sure. :cool:
McClatchy adds some details ...
but tells a similar story as the NYT - instead of an unstated number of "anons", McC has three.
Quote:
Posted on Monday, October 27, 2008
CIA led mystery Syria raid that killed terrorist leader
By Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said Monday.
The body of Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih, an Iraqi national who used the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiya, was flown out of Syria on a U.S. helicopter at the end of the operation Sunday by CIA paramilitary officers and special forces, one U.S. official said.
"It was a successful operation," a second U.S. official told McClatchy. "The bottom line: This was a significant blow to the foreign fighter pipeline between Syria and Iraq."
A senior U.S. military officer said the raid was launched after human and technical intelligence confirmed that al Mazidih was present at the compound close to Syria's border with Iraq. "The situation finally presented itself," he said.
The three U.S. officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was classified, declined to reveal other details of the raid. A CIA spokesman declined to comment. ....
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/54828.html
One cannot expect the exactitude of a military after-action report from the media. Eventually, the facts of this operation will come out of the woodwork - after someone retires and writes a book.