- The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
Iraq’s government rebuked Washington yesterday for launching a military raid into neighbouring Syria from Iraqi soil, while Damascus retaliated by ordering a US school and cultural centre to be closed.
In a brief public comment more than 24 hours after the special forces strike, an Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said Baghdad rejected raids on its neighbours and did not want to be used as a launch pad.
“The constitution does not allow Iraq to be used as a staging ground to attack neighbouring countries,” Dabbagh said, though he also called for an end to insurgent activity in Syria.
The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, last night said Iraqi officials had “started to see the truth” about the raid.
Damascus took its first reprisals against Sunday’s raid by ordering the indefinite closure of the American school and a cultural centre. Both cater to the small US community and other expatriates in the Syrian capital. The Syrian cabinet said the US had violated the UN charter and international law with its raid.
Syria’s ambassador to the UN called for action to prevent a repeat attack. In a letter to the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, Bashar Ja’afari said that the council holds the US “politically” and “legally” responsible. According to Syria, US troops, backed by helicopters, launched the attack near Abu Kamal, five miles into its territory, killing eight people including four children.
US officials in Baghdad have refused to comment on the attack. However, officials in Washington and in the Iraqi government have claimed a henchman of the slain former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in the raid on a compound in Sukkariyeh.
The man was identified as Abu Ghadiyah. Iraqi media also claimed that at least one man was captured and flown into Iraq by US forces, who disembarked from two of four helicopters. At least eight people are thought to have been killed.
The Associated Press quoted a senior US official as saying Abu Ghadiyah was the leader of the most prolific network that moves foreign fighters linked to al-Qaida into Iraq, and was planning an attack within Iraq. “The tripwire was knowing an attack was imminent, and also being able to pinpoint his location,” the official told Associated Press.
Officials in Baghdad say the Syrian town targeted during the raid was a major supply line to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, from where intelligence suggests insurgents are staging what amounts to a last stand in Iraq. Mosul is also seen as a supply line north to Afghanistan, which many in Iraq believe is fast emerging as a new frontline for foreign Arab fighters committed to the global jihad ideology.
The Iraqi army now has partial control of Anbar province, which stretches west from Baghdad towards the Syrian border. The province was dubbed the triangle of death in the early days of the US-led occupation and remained a hotbed of militant activity and attacks against coalition forces through four years of often blazing insurgency.
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