By Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes , Los Angeles Times|October 27, 2008
U.S. forces crossed five miles into Syria by helicopter and launched a commando raid yesterday near the Iraqi border that left at least eight people dead, Syrian news outlets and sources reported.
Details of yesterday's attack were sketchy. A military officer in Iraq confirmed that U.S. forces had conducted a raid into Syria but declined to provide further information. In Washington, military representatives did not deny that a raid had taken place. Though they would not confirm the attack, they used language typically employed after raids conducted by Special Operations Forces.
Syria has long been a conduit for foreign fighters attempting to slip into Iraq to attack U.S. troops. U.S. officials say that military action inside Iraq has reduced their number. But U.S. officials say that militants still operate openly in Syria and that the Damascus government needs to do more to rein them in. They say that fighters who crossed from Syria fomented recent trouble in the northern city of Mosul and conducted an attack in May that killed 11 Iraqi police officers.
In the waning days of the Bush administration, the United States has shown a greater willingness to launch cross-border clandestine operations in another military theater, Pakistan, to protect U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan or to capture or kill Islamic militants.
Damascus' official Syrian Arab News Agency said U.S. military helicopters entered the country along the Iraqi border in Bukamal near the town of Deir Ezzor, which is considered a haven for Sunni Arab militants infiltrating Iraq.
Deir Ezzor, in eastern Syria, is also near the site of a Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli airstrike on what U.S. officials have said was a plutonium plant built with the assistance of North Korea.
The Syrian news agency said four U.S. helicopters crossed into Syrian airspace about 4:45 p.m. and fired on people who appeared to be laborers at their jobs on the second day of the Syrian work week. It said a man identified as Daoud Mohammed Abdullah, his wife and four of his sons were killed.
"All victims were civilians," said Syria's Dunya private television.
Witnesses said that two helicopters landed and eight U.S. soldiers disembarked. Syrian state television said they stormed a building.
There have been rare reports of the U.S. military firing across the Syrian border since fighting began in Iraq in 2003. But the attack, if confirmed, would appear to mark the first time that U.S. troops have launched an attack inside Syria.
