Syria says border troops fired on by U.S. forces Thu Jul 21, 2005 5:13 PM ET
By Inal Ersan
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria said on Thursday its border troops had been fired on by U.S. and Iraqi forces and accused Washington, London and Baghdad of lack of cooperation in preventing insurgents infiltrating into Iraq.
It was the first time Syria, which has a 600 km (375 mile) desert border with Iraq, had reported cases of U.S. troops firing on its forces.
The Foreign Ministry told heads of diplomatic missions in Damascus in a letter obtained by Reuters that Syrian border troops had been subject to attacks "not only by infiltrators and smugglers but by the Iraqi and American forces."
"The border clashes amounted to about 100 armed clashes, some of which were carried out by American soldiers who opened fire arbitrarily at those present behind the dirt rampart due to loss of self control," said the ministry.
The U.S. military in Iraq has launched several operations against insurgents near the border in the past few months but has not reported any cross-border fire.
In Washington, U.S. officials at the Pentagon said they were unaware of any shooting incidents involving Syria but were checking with U.S. forces in Iraq.
U.S. ACCUSATIONS
U.S. officials accuse Syria of not doing enough to stop insurgents from crossing into Iraq to fight U.S. and Iraqi forces and often say that guerrillas are using Syria as a conduit for the transfer of funds to fuel the insurgency.
"Syria ... needs to take steps to go after those ... elements that may be operating on their territory and they need to play a helpful role with their neighbors," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
"Syria has been out of step with the rest of the Middle East. The Middle East has been leaning more and more in the direction of freedom and democracy," said McClellan.
Damascus said it was doing its utmost to seal its border with Iraq and stop it from being crossed by Syrian and other foreign insurgents.
Syria had prevented 1,240 suspects from crossing into Iraq and extradited most of them to their respective countries, said the ministry.
About 4,000 Syrians "who left or attempted to leave to Iraq to fight there have been investigated," it said.
The United States and Britain had failed to respond to Syrian requests for night vision and radar-based monitoring systems to prevent night infiltrations, said the letter, delivered to envoys by Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Mualem.
Syria said daytime infiltrations were now "a very difficult issue (for insurgents) but the problem of infiltrations still persists to a certain extent during the night because of the lack of necessary technical equipment to monitor the border."
It said Iraq had so far failed to ratify a protocol for security cooperation signed in Damascus in July 2004 and subsequent agreements.
Stability in Iraq was in the interest of Syria because it paved the way for the end of the presence of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said the letter.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The role of Islam and even Iraq's future name are among the issues that remain in dispute only two weeks before the deadline for parliamentary approval of the new constitution, committee members drafting the document said Saturday.
More than 90 percent of the document is complete, the members say. But the toughest issues remain unresolved, and some say it is unlikely they can be settled before the Aug. 15 deadline for parliamentary approval.
By plan, after parliamentary approval, voters will decide whether to approve the charter in a national referendum in mid-October.
The United States considers meeting the deadlines key toward building political momentum to take the steam out of the insurgency.
Kurdish legislator Hussein Mohammed Taha, detailing the disputed issues, said Kurds and Shiites agree that Iraq should become a federal state while Sunni Arabs object, fearing it could lead to the division of the country.
"There is a group that wants Iraq to be called `The Iraqi Islamic Federal Republic,' while the other wants it called the `Iraqi Federal Republic' and another group rejects both names," Taha said.
Another problem is whether the official language of Iraq should be Arabic alone or Arabic and Kurdish, he added.
There are even differences over whether Iraq should be formally declared part of the Arab and Islamic nation, or whether the document should state that the Iraqi people are parts of those nations, he said.
A serious point of disagreement appears to be the role of Islam in the state. Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, want Islam to be the main source of legislation, while the Kurds want it to be one of the sources _ as it is in the interim constitution approved before the Americans restored Iraqi sovereignty in June 2004.
"The Americans and the British are demanding that the constitution be done on time and we are asking the Americans and British to put pressure on the Kurds," said Jawad al-Maliki, a member of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Dawa party.
But Kurdish committee member Mahmoud Othman criticized U.S. officials for pressuring the Kurds and other framers to meet the deadline.
"If they want to interfere they should do it openly inside the committee. The American ambassador should ... come speak during our meetings. He should not speak to members on the side," Othman said. "It is a shame for a superpower to behave like this."
Sunni Arab members of the drafting committee are against extending the constitutional deadline because "we believe this will give an opportunity to the current anarchy and bad security situation to continue," Sunni Arab committee member Saleh al-Mutlaq said.
Some decisions may have to be deferred until after Iraqis elect a new parliament Dec. 15. Whether the election is held at all, however, depends on approval of the constitution, al-Mutlaq said.
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