Syria accused the United States on Monday of carrying out a "terrorist aggression" after a deadly raid near its border with Iraq which it said killed eight civilians. "The Americans do it in the daylight. This means it is not a mistake, it is by blunt determination. For that we consider this criminal and terrorist aggression," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told a news conference in London.
The Iraqi government said Sunday's strike in the Albou Kamal area in eastern Syria, targeted insurgents who attack Iraq. Moualem said Syria would ask the United States and Iraq for an investigation into the attack. "We put the responsibility on the American government and the need to investigate and return back to us with the result and explanation why they did it," Moualem said.
"We ask the Iraqi government also to investigate," he said, adding that Iraqi's territories should not be used "to launch aggression against Syria". Washington has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Sunday's raid. If confirmed, it would be the first such US military strike inside Syria since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "I will say this once and you can ask me as many times as you want to: I have no comment on any alleged operation in Syria," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
Syria has said four US helicopters attacked al-Sukkari farm in the Albou Kamal area, killing eight civilians, and that US soldiers stormed a building there. Asked if the Syrians would use force if the Americans conducted a similar raid in future, Moualem said: "As long as you are saying if, I will tell you if they do it again ... we will defend our territories".
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the attack was launched against "terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq", including one which had killed 13 police recruits in an Iraqi border village. "Iraq had asked Syria to hand over this group, which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist activities," Dabbagh said. He did not say who had carried out the raid inside Syria.
The official Syrian news agency SANA quoted a survivor, Souad al-Jasim, as saying that US soldiers fired on her and her children in the tent. "Then they opened fire on the workers on site," she said. Jasim's husband was killed in the attack. One of her children was wounded. Thousands of people attended a funeral held for those killed in the raid, SANA said. Syria's foreign ministry summoned the US charge d'affaires in Damascus on Sunday to protest.