Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders

[allemand]

by Harry de Quetteville in Baghouz Friday, Nov. 25, 2005 at 1:24 PM

The charge follows leaks in Washington that the US has already engaged in military raids into Syria and is contemplating launching special forces operations on Syrian soil to eliminate insurgent networks before they reach Iraq.

Syria has accused the United States of launching lethal military raids into its territory from Iraq, escalating the diplomatic crisis between the two countries as the Bush administration seeks to step up pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime.

Major General Amid Suleiman, a Syrian officer, said that American cross-border attacks into Syria had killed at least two border guards, wounded several more and prompted an official complaint to the American embassy in Damascus.

He made the allegations during an official press tour of Syrian security forces on the Iraqi border, which the US claims is a barely guarded passage into Iraq for hardcore foreign jihadis.

More:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/1722454.php

Link to original source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/30/wsyria30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/30/ixworld.html

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Syria claims US forces suffered 11 casualties in a Syrian-US clash Thursday night, Nov. 24 – without clarifying whether they meant dead or wounded

November 25, 2005, 5:14 PM (GMT+02:00)

Internal Syrian communications channels report Syrian “Desert Guards” border units fought US Marines who crossed into Syria at a point west of al Qaim. They also claimed 30 Syrian casualties.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report the battle took place at the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Abu Kemal. US forces were in hot pursuit of a group of al Qaeda operatives who fled across to Syria in escape an American attack pinning them down in Mosul. The US military delivered Syria an ultimatum to hand the terrorists over. The American pursuit continued Friday when Syria failed to respond.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=1319

[Ian David]

1. Is Debkja still the only primary source covering this?

Or has someone more credible verified it yet?

[allemand]

4. When Syrian officers and Israeli intelligence agree on something

it could actually be true.

[Ian David]

7. When Debka SAYS Syrian officers and Israeli intelligence agree...

I'd prefer to hear someone else reporting that Israeli intelligence and Syrian officers are agreeing on it.

Debka seems to have "gotten the scoop" on WWIII with this this one, though. Credit where credit is due and all that.

This one actually was hugh and breaking hard!

[allemand]

9. The first report has nothing to do with Debka.

Otherwise I wouldn't have posted it in LBN.

[Ian David]

20. Someone else had used the Debka as their only source in another thread...

I was just commenting that until you had posted it with a non-debka source, I wasn't inclined to believe it had more than about a 30% chance of being true.

I hope you don't think I was faulting you somehow.

Thanks for posting it!

[Gyre]

2. Until Congress decides to pay attention

nothing's going to happen to stop this. Downside for the chimp who wanted a "war" with Syria? Nothing.

Gyre

[Ian David]

3. The Daily Telegraph is carrying it. I'd say it's now 90% likely to be true

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/30/wsyria30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/30/ixworld.html

[burrowowl]

27. And the Telegraph is not what you

would a leftist newspaper in Britain.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. If true (Debka) can all of you spell Laos and Cambodia?

but stop saying that there are no paralells to Nam ok.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

25. No, the parallels are completely different

Nam is like what, 10east and 14north?

and

Iraq is like, oh... 65east and 35north


see the difference?

[Ian David]

33. In Vietnam, we were able to secure the road to the airport! n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

34. The airport was lots closer

but, yeah. that's true.

[IndianaGreen]

6. The story is copyrighted by Telegraph Group Limited

Across the Euphrates, the border appears to be the likely stage for a future showdown between the US and Syria.

"Sometimes the US soldiers fire at us every day," said Ibrahim Brahim, a Syrian security official. "Sometimes it's simply a mistake, but sometimes it's not. Mostly the US army wants to show us its power."

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/1722454.php

I dare say that we can Google for the original story.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Here is the link to The Telegraph... the story is legit

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/30/wsyria30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/30/ixworld.html

[bemildred]

10. This a regurgitation of a month old story.

Heaven knows why someone wants to go over this again now:
:eyes:

Syria accuses US of military raids
Correspondents in Damascus
October 31, 2005

SYRIA has accused the US of launching lethal military raids into its territory from Iraq, escalating the diplomatic crisis between the two countries as the Bush administration seeks to step up pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime.

Syrian army officer Amid Suleiman told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper that US cross-border attacks into Syria had killed at least two border guards.

The charge follows leaks in Washington that the US has already engaged in military raids into Syria and is contemplating launching special forces operations on Syrian soil to eliminate insurgent networks before they reach Iraq, the report said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17087490%255E31477,00.html

[allemand]

12. So, only Debka as source, mods please delete

Sorry, I didn't realise that the original story is one month old.

[bemildred]

14. Well, it's Debka, I think, that is being cute here.

They seem to want to suggest new action on the Syrian border.
Whether it should be deleted is up to the mods, and would depend on
whether Debka is to be taken as a news source. I was not trying to
get the story deleted, I just wanted to make the context clear, since
I remembered the earlier story and the General's name.

[allemand]

16. Joshua Landis, a much more reliable source, reported that 2 soldiers were

shot on Wednesday.

2 Syrians Shot at Border with Iraq
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/2005/11/2-syrians-shot-at-border-with-iraq.htm

Some fighting is going on, but it's unclear on what scale.

[bemildred]

17. Yeah, I think that's right, I expect it's ongoing.

Might be provocation of some sort, or just the fog of war.
Debka seems to want to suggest the former. There are a couple
wierd stories about Syria/Lebanon today, the David Duke in
Damascus thing, for one other one.

[IndianaGreen]

18. Looks like a well organized campaign of US provocations

intended to elicit a response from Syria that Bush can use as a pretext to bomb that country.

There are too many little stories from various sources about US aggression against Syria to be ignored.

Makes me wonder what other threats did Bush make to Blair on that Al-Jazeera bombing memo that Blair is trying to keep the press from publishing.

[bemildred]

19. That was my thought too.

The Bushites just got blown out of the water on Iran Thursday.

[lisby]

11. Jeebus god, we are screwed.

But it's not like it took a brain the size of a small planet to see it coming.

:eyes:


Lisby

[Igel]

13. Probably not a casus belli, if true.

"Hot pursuit" is a fairly justified excuse for a raid inside a neutral country's borders, under a range of conditions. It's been done for many a year, and invoked by many a country.

[wakeme2008]

15. I think I just read the book :)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0425205592.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Cussler's back, this time with coauthor Dubrul. For those readers who are still counting, it's Cussler's twenty-eighth book. This one involves the clandestine spy ship Oregon, whose crew--led by one Juan Cabrillo--work for what Cussler describes as "high-powered Western interests." Cabrillo's newest employers are a consortium of Japanese shipping tycoons who are being threatened by pirates. The plot includes commercial freighters that are disappearing, missiles that North Korea is selling to Syria, bad guys planting a bomb on a ship that the U.S. wants to destroy, the sinking of a research vessel, covert operations from any number of nations, and the threat of diseases such as typhoid and cholera that could run rampant--and that's just the first 100 pages. These are a few trite lines ("We can't see diddly," for example) and an ending that doesn't come as a surprise, but Cussler's countless fans won't care. George Cohen

[ECH1969]

21. Syria claims US forces suffered 11 casualties in a Syrian-US clash

Internal Syrian communications channels report Syrian “Desert Guards” border units fought US Marines who crossed into Syria at a point west of al Qaim. They also claimed 30 Syrian casualties.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report the battle took place at the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Abu Kemal. US forces were in hot pursuit of a group of al Qaeda operatives who fled across to Syria in escape an American attack pinning them down in Mosul. The US military delivered Syria an ultimatum to hand the terrorists over. The American pursuit continued Friday when Syria failed to respond.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=1319

[BattyDem]

22. Can the Bushies take the troops into Syria without Congressional approval?

Who authorized our troops to cross the border? BushCo keeps going from country to country and nobody does a f*cking thing to stop them! :grr:

[dutchdemocrat]

28. Yes

Yes

______

US troops have allegedly already been over the Syrian border in a few skirmishes - much like they did in Cambodia from Vietnam 30 years ago, which is possibly a routing of the of the War Powers Act of 1973 - put in place to muzzle Nixon but possibly being undone by Bush.

Passed by Congress over President Nixon's veto, the http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/%7Ehst306/documents/war73.html">War Powers Act of 1973 requires the president to "consult" with Congress before "introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances".

The real question is - will Bush and friends just utilise the Sept. 14, 2001 congressional resolution to justify invasion of Syria and Iran. Not without a terrorist attack on the US most likely - but Bush can, under the structure of the resolution, announce that he has determined that Syria or Iran is harbouring al Queda - and invade without even informing Congress until 48 hours after US troops are over the border.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=247&Itemid=5

[tocqueville]

23. I have no idea of the reliability of the Debka files

It seems produced in Israel.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

24. Debka on theirown is highly suspect

as a source.

[sofa king]

29. al Qaim is an interesting place...

I realize the source is in question, but since the Bush Administration generally leaves us, the peons, with no choice but to play "what if," let's take a look at the geographical significance of a point west of al Qaim. Pick a map:

http://images.google.com/images?q=syria+map&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&imgsz=xxlarge

The most obvious significant point west of al Qaim is the town of Abu Kamal, inside Syria by just a few miles. Abu Kamal sits astride the Euphrates river, and is the junction of the two major highways which follow that river straight up to the Euphrates Dam in the north center of the country. There is also a track leading from Abu Kamal to the town of Tadmor, the historic Palmyra.

It would appear that the main highway running northwest through Syria goes from Damascus, to Tadmor, to the Euphrates Dam. So if I were going to invade Syria from the west, I'd put a brigade on either side of the Euphrates starting at Abu Kamal, and run hell-bent for leather up the river until I got to the dam. At the same time, I'd send at least two brigades for Tadmor, and once those two objectives were reached, I'd do a nice little kesselschlacht up and down the Damascus-Euphrates Dam highway to bag any Syrian units caught in between.

Once that was done, I could advance down the road to Damascus. And if I were a really clever guy, I'd have my Israeli pals start making a bit of noise on the Golan Heights in order to keep some of the Syrian forces interested there. I have no doubt that the Syrians hate Americans by now, but they really hate the Israelis, so they'll do something not unlike that which France did to the Italians in 1940, which is keep more than enough troops nearby to cause the Israelis trouble, even if the Americans are gobbling up the rest of the country. And of course, the Israelis don't actually have to attack, because once Damascus is taken by the Americans, those units are trapped between two fires with little choice but to surrender.

It's such an obvious plan of attack that even if I had a totally different invasion plan, I'd still do my best to make sure the Syrians think that this is the plan, because they'll want to believe it.

Against the outdated and ill-kept Syrian armored forces, I think I could do the hard fighting with four armored brigades. And since we're busy building fourteen brigade-sized bases in Iraq right now, and Iraq now magically needs fewer troops, there will likely be four brigades available to cut and run... straight into Syria. Actual occupation of the country with that few troops would be difficult, but that hasn't stopped Donald Rumsfeld yet. The first objective is to destroy the enemy armored units by forcing them to fight, and they'll fight for Abu Kamal, they'll fight for the Euphrates Dam, and they'll fight for Tadmor, or it won't be worth it to bother fighting at all.

Let us hope that Debka is incorrect. But if they are, what we are seeing could be battlefield preparation.

[rayofreason]

26. Wait a second...

...The DEBKAfile story is recent, refering to events on 11/24, but the Telegraph story is from October 29.

Two different, unconnected, uncoroborated, stories. Sheesh.

[allemand]

30. The indymedia article was published yesterday and I didn't realize that

original story was published a month ago. I thought that the article and DEBKAfile were referring to the same incident. Debka is not reliable as a source. There are other more reliable reports about fighting and casualties at the Syrian border (I quoted one above), so some fighting is taking place, but perhaps not on the scale of the Debka report.

Debka is unreliable, but that doesn't mean that everything they report is false. They mix propaganda and truth.
For example they were the first to point the finger at Syrian intelligence chief General Rustom Ghazali only four hours after the killing of Hariri (at the time, al-Jazeera had only just aired the tape of Abu Adass, the self-confessed Islamist suicide bomber). UN investigator Mehlis would later adopt the same line. Also, Debka seems to have excellent links to the Mehlis commission, they frequently publish insider reports with details about the ongoing investigation.

[Raiden]

31. Well, now we have a Cambodia parallel

This war gets more like Vietnam every day

[bemildred]

32. Resistance sites are confirming this.

Says US troops went 5 miles into Syria in hot pursuit Thursday.