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27 October 2008
Yesterday, U.S. special operations forces struck positions across the Syrian-Iraq order, inside of Syria, apparently killing nine people, most of whom were non-Syrian Arab fighters on their way into Iraq. Of course there is a great cry rising from the Syrians today.
For years, tons of explosives and a long line of foreign terrorists have streamed across the Syrian border into Anbar Province and Nineveh Province, Iraq. I must have spent a total of about nine months in Nineveh, about eight of which were in the capital of Mosul, and another month in Anbar.
Foreign terrorists were caught or killed on a regular basis, and they all had the same story: They came from an alphabet soup of Arab countries: Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, to name a handful. They had come through Syria. I remember the day the Libyan was captured in 2005. Iraqis were trying to force him to wear a suicide vest to attack police in Mosul. I remember the night, a raid that I did not go on, when the Tunisians were captured in 2005, resulting in hand-to-hand combat that did not go well for the Tunisians. The owner of the safe house was captured with a diary listing dates and effects for years of attacks; that diary actually matched up perfectly with SIGACT reports of the same incidents. The Tunisians were captured with all sorts of documentation, as I recall, that chronicled their long journey by all modes of transport to get through to Syria and across into Mosul.
The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…
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