U.S. Assails Syria As Area Troublemaker

ap on Yahoo ^ | 9/16/05 | William C. Mann - ap

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON - In a spirited attack, the State Department's spokesman on Friday accused Syria of making trouble not only for Iraq, by allowing foreign fighters to infiltrate the country, but also for Lebanon and the Palestinians.

"Syria, more and more, is being recognized as a destabilizing element in the region," Adam Ereli said Friday. "It's not just about Iraq; it's about Iraq, it's about Lebanon, it's about the Palestinian Authority. Because there's a connection between Syria and terrorism and murder and mayhem in each of these three different areas."

Syrian President Bashar Assad's government insists it is doing what it can to keep foreigners from crossing its border into Iraq and has said in the past it was trying to control militant anti-Israeli Palestinian groups based in Damascus.

The Americans contend that many of the suicide bombings in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion 2 1/2 years ago have been committed by foreign fighters who entered the country through Syria. State Department and other U.S. spokesmen have alleged the bombers pass through Damascus' airport with impunity on their way to the border.

"Innocent people are getting blown up in Iraq because Syria is allowing its territory to be used by terrorists bent on sowing murder and mayhem in Iraq," Ereli said. "And they're not going to succeed. The international community is not going to let this continue to happen."

He accused Syria, which removed its occupying army from Lebanon this year, of maintaining "a residual presence" that endangers Lebanon's sovereignty and its people.

As for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank, Ereli said Syria continues its association "with terrorist elements that are bent on sabotaging the peace process. ... And they are certainly out of step with the rest of the world on that."

Last Saturday, Assad hosted leaders of 10 Palestinian groups based in Damascus. The news agency SANA said he told them to close ranks and continue their struggle to achieve a Palestinian state.

Ereli said Syria has ignored pleas to stop the border crossings from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, current Secretary Condoleezza Rice and other State Department officials.

"Does Syria not care that young guys from Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or Iran come into Damascus airport with a one-way ticket and no job and no place to stay and then find their way into Iraq where they strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up and kill children in a market? Women and children in front of a market?" Ereli asked.

"I mean, why does Syria continue to let that happen unless there's a deliberate decision to do it? There certainly seems to be an unwillingness to take actions to stop it."

[injin]

It's time for Syria to be stopped .
With B-2's........

[bnelson44]

so who is going to do something about it?

[tamalejoe]

Why isn't the USAF bombing these fools? Are they waiting for my permission??

[Tulsa Ramjet]

We do we seem still out to lunch on this?

If there are terrorists being funneled there, end it.
Pres. Bush needs to remember his words: "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

Three words:
Stealth, Covert, Tomahawk.

[msnimje]

It looks like the official period of warning Syria is about the end. Assad the Lesser better get is sorry arse in line.

[mathurine]

No where to run, no place to hide for that sorry son of Allah. Get him.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

I dunno, time to take out the trash?

[rebel_yell2]

Sorry, but it going to take GIs going door-to-door to clean out this rat's nest. As in the old Iraq, most Syrians are without blame. It is the powers that control Syria that must be removed and then brought to justice.

[injin]

it going to take GIs going door-to-door to clean out this rat's nest.

Yep! an we'll give um the Rebel Yell to really scare the hell out of them as we go in ;^)

[Moorings]

"U.S. Assails Syria As Area Troublemaker"

Just more words. I don't bother to read these articles anymore. What have we done about it. I don't think even the Syrians pay any attention to this.

[Joe Boucher]

G.W., time to put the fear of the U,S, airforce in the little slug bashir.
Do to him just what we did to Quadafy a few years ago when we dropped a bunch of bombs on his compound killing his kin.
Oh yeah, one more thing. The Lybia raid was the one made infinately more difficult by the french not allowing our planes to cross its airspace.
Hey france, F.You.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

..................

[bitt]

Syria...blah-blah...Syria weapons hidden in the ...blah-blah...as usual, it is Syria....sick of the blah-blah, lower the Boom-Boom..

[M. Espinola]

Locked, loaded and ready. Target Damascus!

"The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap ... And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us." Isaiah 17:1,14

"Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!" Jeremiah 49:24-25

[stboz]

Anybody watching for convoys of trucks hauling who-knows-what? Of course, this time there's no place to go.....