The United States has handed back five Syrian border guards wounded in a coalition attack on a convoy on the border with Iraq last month. The guards were detained following a raid by Task Force 20, a unit set up to hunt down senior members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime. US defence officials have said the convoy of six or seven vehicles was believed to be carrying regime figures when it was struck. They have also said it is not clear if the fighting strayed into Syrian territory. Mr Rumsfeld says the guards' return was delayed because the Pentagon had wanted to question them further. "I don't think that would be helpful from our standpoint beyond saying that we had good intelligence and it indicated that there were people moving during a curfew close to the border in a convoy of sports utility vehicles. Our forces went in and stopped them."
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