MISSILE HIT SYRIA
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http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/276296.html
5 Syrians killed, 10 injured in U.S. missile
strike near Iraqi border
By The Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria - A U.S. missile hit a passenger bus carrying Syrian civilians fleeing the war in Iraq, killing five and injuring 10, Syria's official news agency reported Monday.
The agency reported that the air-to-surface missile hit the bus Sunday morning in Iraq close to the Syrian border.
A U.S. Central Command spokeswoman had no information on the report that a missile had hit a bus. She said, however, that U.S. forces do not target civilians, and that their targeting is done very carefully, using precision-guided missiles, to select military targets.
The Syrian agency said the wounded were taken to a Syrian hospital on the Syrian-Iraqi border, while the dead were sent to a hospital on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, where officials said relatives have retrieved the bodies.
Some "wounded were treated here and then taken (to their homes) in the (northern Syrian) cities of Hama and Aleppo," Dr. Abdullah al-Salhi, director general of the Douma hospital near Damascus, told The Associated Press.
Syria, which strongly opposes the U.S.-led war on Iraq, has repeatedly called for a peaceful solution of the Iraq-U.S. dispute over Baghdad's weapons arsenal.
Meanwhile, four Iraqi diplomats and their families arrived by road in Damascus after neighboring Jordan ordered them to leave over the weekend, the Syrian agency reported.
The four diplomats were among five officials attached to the Iraqi Embassy in Jordan who authorities expelled for actions "incompatible" with their diplomatic duties.
Jordanian authorities said the expulsions, the first of Iraqi officials by an Arab state, were ordered for "security" reasons and independently to a U.S. request to close Iraqi embassies in 60 countries and expel their diplomats. -
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6183096%255E1702,00.html
Syria lodges official protest
March 24, 2003
THE Syrian Foreign Ministry has summoned the US and British ambassadors to lodge an official protest over the killing of five Syrians in a missile attack on a bus in Iraq, the official SANA news agency reported.
The ministry had delivered an "official protest" to the two diplomats over "this terrible aggression," SANA said.
It also "reserves the right to claim damages and warned against the danger of targeting innocent civilians."
Five Syrians were killed and another 10 hurt when a US missile struck a bus in Rutba, western Iraq, as it was returning to neighbouring Syria yesterday morning, SANA reported earlier.
The bus was carrying 37 Syrians fleeing the "American-British aggression on Iraq that is targeting innocent civilians" when it was struck as it drove through Rutba, 150 kilometres from the border, SANA said. -
[b]Syrian Volunteers Reportedly Head for Iraq[/b
]Mar 24, 2003
Summary
Busloads of Syrians reportedly have left Syria to fight alongside Iraqi soldiers. If true, this would be an astounding development on Damascus' part, as it would be tantamount to declaring war on the United States.
Analysis
The BBC has reported that busloads of Syrian volunteers have left Syria to fight alongside Iraqi soldiers. The network offered no further details regarding the numbers involved or Damascus' position on their actions. However, while Syria has stated its opposition to the war, Damascus has been extremely cautious in avoiding the impression of providing material support to Iraq. Even tacit approval of Syrian volunteers in Iraq would be tantamount to siding with Iraq in its war with the United States. That would be a tremendous gamble on the outcome of the war.
Damascus certainly would prefer that the United States not successfully occupy Iraq. Should that occupation occur, Syria would be surrounded by U.S. and allied forces to the north, south and east, severely limiting its diplomatic and military options. However, since U.S. forces already are deployed to Iraq, en route and available, it would be difficult to argue at this time that Iraq will emerge from this war victorious. Coalition troops have faced some resistance, but not enough to justify a Syrian gamble on a U.S. loss.
Sources in Syria report that tens of thousands of Syrian volunteers are pressing Damascus to allow them to cross the border to help their Iraqi brethren fight the U.S. Army. The government reportedly is refusing, as it fears U.S. anger and already has been warned by Washington. But the sources say that hundreds of young Syrians, many of them former soldiers with the Syrian army, are successfully finding their way into Iraq -- either crossing the desert on foot or camel or by bribing border guards.
There is one anomaly that could support the BBC report of busloads of volunteers leaving Syria to fight. According to Syria's SANA news agency, a U.S. warplane fired a missile at a busload of Syrian nationals in Iraq at 10:00 a.m. local time -- 0700 GMT -- March 23. The bus was carrying 37 laborers, purportedly returning to Syria from jobs in Iraq, when it was attacked near Ar Rutbah, roughly 100 miles from the Syrian border. Five of the passengers died and at least 10 were wounded in the attack. Regarding the reported attack, a CENTCOM spokeswoman said only that the United States selects its targets carefully and uses precision-guided munitions to avoid civilian casualties.
This could be an accident and a coincidence. After all, according to SANA, the bus was returning to Syria, not traveling to Baghdad. But one last nagging fact emerged: One of those wounded in the attack was transferred to his hometown of Hamma. Hamma was the site of an Islamist uprising in 1982, which was brutally suppressed by then-President Hafez al Assad. Now, just because someone comes from a town that was a hotbed of Islamist activism two decades ago, when he was an infant, doesn't mean he is either an Islamist or inclined to volunteer for a war against U.S. forces in neighboring Iraq.
Just to weave in two more tenuous threads of circumstance, we note that last year there were reports of secret Iraqi-Syrian security negotiations and of the transfer of Iraqi arms to Syria and Syrian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. And on March 21, U.S. aircraft bombed the Iraqi town of Akashat, near the Syrian border. There were subsequent reports in the Lebanese and Chinese press of U.S. Special Operations forces skirmishing with Iraqis in that town. There were no reports of Syrian involvement, and the town is reportedly the site of weapons of mass destruction manufacturing facilities. It could have been targeted for reasons having nothing to do with the Syrian volunteers.
While Stratfor sources confirm that Syrian volunteers are trying to reach Iraq, the BBC allegations of busloads pouring out of the country are difficult to believe and can be bolstered only by the thinnest of circumstances. A few busloads of Syrian volunteers would do nothing to shift the course of the war in Iraq, but would draw U.S. wrath after the war if the coalition emerged victorious. The only conditions under which Damascus would allow volunteers to join Iraqi forces would be if they knew the battle was stacked against CENTCOM or if they were also planning to send significant forces to shift the course of the battle. Neither seems likely, but the situation in Syria is worth monitoring. -
the missile did not hit syria - it hit syrians. the title was very decieving
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isn't that great.. next syria.. then Lebanon, then those pro Iraq countries.. then the moros in philippines, Pas in MalaysiaOriginally posted by duotiga83: -
Syria could be next, warns Washington
Ed Vulliamy in Washington
Sunday April 13, 2003
The Observer
The United States has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hizbollah group in the next phase of its 'war on terror' in a move which could threaten military action against President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus.
The move is part of Washington's efforts to persuade Israel to support a new peace settlement with the Palestinians. Washington has promised Israel that it will take 'all effective action' to cut off Syria's support for Hizbollah - implying a military strike if necessary, sources in the Bush administration have told The Observer .
Hizbollah is a Shia Muslim organisation based in Lebanon, whose fighters have attacked northern Israeli settlements and harassed occupying Israeli troops to the point of forcing an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon three years ago.
The new US undertaking to Israel to deal with Hizbollah via its Syrian sponsors has been made over recent days during meetings between administration officials and Israeli diplomats in Washington, and Americans talking to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. It would be part of a deal designed to entice Israel into the so-called road map to peace package that would involve the Jewish state pulling out of the Palestinian West Bank, occupied since 1967.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has so far rejected the road map initiative - charted by the US with its ally, Britain - which also calls for mutual recognition between Israel and a new Palestinian state, structured according to US-backed reforms. The American guarantee would be to take armed action if necessary to cut off Syrian support for Hizbollah, and stop further sponsorship for the group by Iran.
'If you control Iraq, you can affect the Syrian and Iranian sponsorship of Hizbollah, both geographically and politically,' says Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington.
'The United States will make it very clear, quietly and publicly, that Baathist Syria may come to an end if it does not stop its support of Hizbollah.'
The undertaking dovetails conveniently into 'phase three' of what President George Bush calls the 'war on terror' and his pledge to go after all countries accused of harbouring terrorists.
It also fits into calls by hawks inside and aligned to the administration who believe that war in Iraq was first stage in a wider war for American control of the region. Threats against Syria come daily out of Washington.
Hawks in and close to the Bush White House have prepared the ground for an attack on Syria, raising the spectre of Hizbollah, of alleged Syrian plans to wel come refugees from Saddam Hussein's fallen regime, and of what the administration insists is Syrian support for Iraq during the war.
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - regarded as the real architect of the Iraqi war and its aftermath - said on Thursday that 'the Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try and kill Americans', adding: 'We need to think about what our policy is towards a country that harbours terrorists or harbours war criminals.
'There will have to be change in Syria, plainly,' said Wolfowitz.
Washingtom intelligence sources claim that weapons of mass destruction that Saddam was alleged to have possessed were shipped to Syria after inspectors were sent by the United Nations to find them.
One of the chief ideologists behind the war, Richard Perle, yesterday warned that the US would be compelled to act against Syria if it emerged that weapons of mass destruction had been moved there by Saddam's fallen Iraqi regime.
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,935943,00.html -
Yes.. yes.. and Yes..
Next Syria.. another state sponser of terrorism
I believe they are peeing in their pants now as ALLah will forsake them like he forsake the Saddam..
After Syria let me see, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Lebanon, Some Arabs countries, then southern Philippines ( Moros ).. next we go by the terror group.. PLO and Hamas in Israel, JI in indonesia and PAS in Malaysia..
yes.. finished them all and let them know whose God is really God
