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| Iraq-Jordan | |
| Marines Said to Tighten Iraq-Syria Border | |
| 2004-04-16 | |
| WASHINGTON (AP) - By putting a bigger force along Iraq's border with Syria, the U.S. Marines have been able to slow the infiltration of foreign fighters, a senior U.S. general said Friday. U.S. officials have frequently cited the Syrian border as a source of foreign extremists who make their way east to the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, and in some cases to Baghdad, and attack U.S. forces. Maj. Gen. John Sattler, the director of operations for Central Command, said in a telephone interview with Pentagon reporters that the Marines have at least one-third more troops along the border than did the 82nd Airborne, which turned over the operation to the Marines last month. Sattler spoke from Central Command's forward headquarters near Doha, Qatar. The Marines have managed to "shut that border region down," Sattler said, later tempering his assessment by saying some foreign fighters continue to elude detection at the border. "Is the border totally shut down? I won't make that statement because it is a large border and at nighttime there are a lot of wadis and places where individuals can work their way across," he said. The Marines' success has come at a high price, however. Sattler refused to provide specifics, but he said, "This is, as we all know, a very dangerous business and the Marines did suffer some casualties there." As a matter of policy, the Marines since arriving in Iraq last month have withheld details about their casualties, including the location and the nature of the hostile action that caused them. One exception was an announcement on March 19 that two Marine privates were killed the day before in hostile action in Qaim, a city about six miles from the Syrian frontier. Sattler's largely upbeat assessment of progress in sealing the Iraqi-Syrian border was in contrast to comments made Thursday by Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During a news conference in Baghdad, Myers talked about the problem of foreign fighters entering Iraq. "We know for a fact that a lot of them find their way into Iraq through Syria for sure. I mean, we know that. The ones we've captured, the ones we've detained, we know how they get here," he said, adding that "to some extent the same thing happens on the Iranian border as well." Sattler said the Marines have focused much of their border-sealing effort in the vicinity of Qaim. He would not say how many Marines are operating along the border, but he said they are using a variety of firepower, including helicopter-borne troops and fixed-wing aircraft. "They have a substantial-size force that is dedicated out into that western region that has shut that border region down," he said, "and it is not only at the legal crossing points where we do have Iraqi border police, but it is those longtime traditional crossing points where foot traffic and some mobile traffic comes across." He described the Marine operations as "very intense" and said they have made major progress over the past week. "We had an extreme amount of success on the front side, meaning that we did find, fix and ultimately finish a number of cells that were up there that were facilitating" the infiltration of foreign fighters, he said. He would not say how many people were in these cells or how many were captured or killed.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 I hope some of the the Marines on the border are from the Plains States. Shooting prarie dogs, invading your dad's corn field, as you are growing up, would have been good practice for the assignment. Vermin is vermin. Whether on the Syria-Iraq Border or the Nebraska-Kansas border. |
| Posted by: Anonymous4052 2004-04-16 6:48:17 PM |