U.S. on Deadly Attack in Syria: "We're Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands"

Senior U.S. officials claimed last night that the head of a Syrian network responsible for smuggling foreign fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq had been killed in Syria during a raid by U.S. special forces that sparked strong condemnation from Damascus.

The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem said the raid had killed eight civilians and was an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression." Speaking at a news conference in London, he warned that Damascus would defend itself against any such future attack.

Sunday's raid, 10km from the Iraqi border, took place in daylight and therefore was "not a mistake," he said.

The rare attack into Syria marks an unexpected expansion of the war in Iraq and comes as the level of fighting drops to its lowest level for four years.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," said a U.S. officer in Washington, confirming that American commandos had entered Syria on Sunday evening to attack a network of guerrillas linked to al-Qa'ida.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official claimed that the target of the raid was an Iraqi smuggler called Abu Ghadiya who enabled fighters to cross the Syria-Iraq border. One official said the man had been killed in the compound which had come under attack.

He said Abu Ghadiya was the nom de guerre of Badran Turki Hisham al-Mazididih, a native of Mosul and an aide of al-Qa'ida's Iraqi leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed two years ago. The official told the Associated Press that Abu Ghadiya had been the head of the single most important foreign fighter cell that had bedeviled Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Syria said that four U.S. helicopters had carried out the raid on a construction site near the Syrian village of Sukkariyeh, 8km from the Iraq border.

Eight men had been killed and two wounded, local officials said. TV images showed a small fenced farm and a truck riddled with bullet holes. There was also a building site and a tent with food and blankets. Spent bullets were scattered around.

In Baghdad the Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said, justifying the raid, that it was launched against "terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq," including one which was responsible or the deaths of 13 police recruits. He said: "Iraq had asked Syria to hand over this group, which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist activities." It is not clear that the U.S. informed the Iraqi government before making its attack.

In Sukkariyeh, a villager named Jumad Ahmad al-Hamad said he had seen four helicopters, two of which landed. "Shooting then started and rang out for 10 minutes." When the helicopters had left, he and other villagers had gone to the site and found the bodies of his uncle, Dawoud al-Hamad, and four of his uncle's sons.

The area is near the Syrian border-crossing of Abu Kamal. It is on the Euphrates river and the main road from Iraq to Syria. It has been used by insurgents entering Iraq since the U.S. invasion and it is not clear why the U.S. military decided to attack it now.

Mr. al-Moualem, said that Syria would ask the U.S. and Iraq to investigate the attack. He said that the U.S. charge d'affaires had told the Syrian government she had "no information."

In response to American charges that al-Qa'ida fighters were still crossing into Iraq from Syria, Mr. al-Moualem said the U.S. had never provided evidence to back up the claims.

Villagers in Sukkariyeh buried their dead yesterday, chanting anti-American slogans and carrying banners reading: "Down with Bush and the American enemy."

Iraqi leaders have long maintained that al-Qa'ida could not operate in Syria without the powerful Syrian intelligence service knowing what they were doing. Top Iraqi officials say they can confirm this from personal experience because many of them, such as the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, were based for many years in Syria before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.