U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as "serious aggression."
A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area struck because Syria was out of the military's reach.
"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.
The attack came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.
A Syrian government statement said the helicopters attacked the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown and fired on workers inside, the statement said.
The government said civilians were among the dead, including four children.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to help John McCain by playing to the delusion that far too many Americans have that Senator Bomb Bomb Iran is somehow stronger on foreign policy and national security and refocusing attention on the Middle East instead of pocketbook issues, or if it's designed to do the presidential equivalent of burning Tara and sowing every acre with salt before allowing Jonas Wilkerson and Emmie Slattery to live there. Regardless of the motivation, the end result is that if, as it appears barring continued voting machine vote-flipping in swing states, a successful effort by the Justice Department to overturn the Supreme Court's decision on Ohio voter registration, and successful suppression of new voters, Barack Obama wins this election, the Bush Administration is bound and determined to exit with far more mischief than pulling keys off of computer keyboards.
