Free Republic

Why did America launch a daylight helicopter attack on Syria provoking worldwide outrage? The plot thickens. Publicly America is still saying nothing but US officials are making intriguing claims off the record. Now, a respected Israeli intelligence expert says he has been told the operation was carried out with the knowledge and co-operation of Syrian intelligence. Ronen Bergman, author of The Secret War with Iran, makes the claim in the Yediot Ahronoth newspaper, based on briefings with two senior American officials, one of whom he says until recently "held a very high ranking in the Pentagon". Mr Bergman told Sky...

An unprecedented American airborne attack on a Syrian village was intended to send a warning to Damascus to take stronger action against Iraq-bound foreign jihadists operating on its soil. The warning came as senior officials in Washington gave their clearest briefings yet on the purpose of the raid, despite the continued official silence from the Pentagon and State Department. "You have to clean up the global threat that is in your backyard and if you don't do that, we are left with no choice but to take these matters into our own hands," one senior official told reporters on conditional...

WASHINGTON — A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said Monday. The body of Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih, an Iraqi national who used the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiya, was flown out of Syria on a U.S. helicopter at the end of the operation Sunday by CIA paramilitary officers and special forces, one U.S. official said."It was a successful operation," a second U.S. official told McClatchy. "The bottom line:...

SUKKARIYEH, Syria (AP) - A resident of the village that was the scene of a U.S. raid says he saw at least two men taken into custody by American forces and whisked away by helicopter.

Al Qaeda leader Abu Ghadiya was killed in yesterday's strike inside Syria, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. But US special operations forces also inflicted a major blow to al Qaeda's foreign fighter network based in Syria. The entire senior leadership of Ghadiya's network was also killed in the raid, the official stated. Ghadiya was the leader of al Qaeda extensive network that funnels foreign fighters, weapons, and cash from Syria into Iraq along the entire length of the Syrian border. Ghadiya was first identified as the target of the raid inside Syria late last...

The US airborne raid into Syrian territory marks the culmination of years of frustration with Damascus’s reluctance to police its own border with Iraq, the main point of entry for foreign jihadists. Since the 2003 invasion, Syria, fearing that it could be the next target for regime change, has allowed Islamic militants to cross its desert borders freely. Significantly, the village of al-Sukkari farm, which US forces raided, is just over the border from the Iraqi city of al-Qaim, which, since 2003, has been a key funnelling point for jihadists entering Iraq on the so-called rat run to the Sunni...

DEVELOPING: U.S. military helicopters attacked an area along Syria's border with Iraq Sunday, causing casualties, Syrian state TV and witnesses said. The television report quoted unnamed Syrian officials and said the area is near the Syrian border town of Abu Kamal. It gave no other details. Local residents told The Associated Press by telephone that two helicopters carrying U.S. soldiers raided a farm in Hwijeh village, 10 miles inside Syria's border, killing seven people and wounding five others. One of the witnesses said five of the dead were from a single family.

(CNN) -- The U.S. military said it is investigating claims from Syria that U.S. helicopters based in Iraq killed eight people and wounded another Sunday in an attack inside Syria's territory Sunday. Syria's state news agency SANA said four U.S. helicopters crossed the border and struck a farm about 5 miles inside Syria before returning to Iraqi airspace. The raid occurred about 4:45 p.m. The helicopters hit a civilian building under construction on the farm, killing killing three men, the wife of a guard and four children, SANA said. Military officials are investigating the claims, Sgt. Brooke Murphy, a U.S....

Syria has said American troops carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people - if the claims are true then this will be the first military incursion by the US into Syrian territory from Iraq. By Jonathan Marcus Diplomatic correspondent, Syria has said American troops carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people - if the claims are true then this will be the first military incursion by the US into Syrian territory from Iraq. Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Muallem met US officials at the UN But its timing is...

United States military helicopters bombed targets in a Syrian border town near Iraq on Sunday after Global Jihad operatives allegedly crossed the border into Syria, killing at least eight people. The raid, which a US military official in Washington confirmed, indicated the desert frontier between the two countries remains a key battleground 5 1/2 years into the Iraq war. The US official said the attack targeted elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network and that due to Syrian inaction the US was now "taking matters into our own hands." Israeli defense officials said the incident was not connected to...