Times Online: Questions raised over Syrian complicity in US raid
Last week, US soldiers conducted a raid on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border, which sparked condemnation from the Syrian government [bbc.co.uk] and led to government-backed protests in Damascus [reuters.com].
According to the Times Online article, things are not as simple as they look. The assumption has been that the raid took place without prior approval from the Syrian government. But what if Syrian intelligence had told the US where the high-level Al Qaeda commander was, and authorized the raid? From the article:
"Abu Ghadiya was feared by the Syrians as an agent of Islamic fundamentalism who was hostile to the secular regime in Damascus. It would be expedient for Syria if America would eliminate him..."That is a really interesting article, and it's plausibility is frightening.
"The Washington source said the Americans regularly communicate with the Syrians through a back channel that runs through Syria’s air force intelligence, the Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya."
"In the time-honoured tradition of covert US operations in the Middle East, this one seems to have gone spectacularly wrong. The Syrians, who had agreed to turn a blind eye to a supposedly quiet 'snatch and grab' raid, could not keep the lid on a firefight in which so many people had died."
Image from labanex's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].
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