Syria has accused the United States of killing at least eight people in ahelicopter raid in the country’s east, close to the border with Iraq.
The governmentsummoned the US and Iraqi charge d’affaires to Damascus to protest against the raid, the Syrian Arab news agency (Sana) reported on Sunday.
Syrian state television said American helicopters raided the village of Sukariya, which lies 550km northeast of Damascus.
"Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 4:45pm local time [13:45 GMT] on Sunday," state television and Sana news agency reported.
"Syria condemns and denounces this act of aggression and USforces will bear the responsibility for any consequences," Sana quoted an official as saying.
"Syria also demands that the Iraqi government accept its responsibilities and launches an immediate inquiry following this dangerous violation and forbids the use of Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Syria," the official said.
During the raids, two of the helicopters landedand dropped off eight US soldiers, who then entered a house, Syrian media reported.
"American soldiers … attacked a civilian building under construction and fired at workmen inside, causing eight deaths," the reports said.
The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory, Sana reported. US reaction
Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Hughes, a spokesman for US forces in western Iraq, said the US division that operates on the Iraqi side of the border was not involved in the incident.
A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said he had no immediate information on the reported strike but would check further while the White House and CIA declined to comment.
If the raid is confirmed, it would be the first time that American forces have carried out an attack on Syrian soil.
The US and the US-backed Iraqi government sayDamascus is not doing enough to stop anti-US fighters, including those from al-Qaeda, from crossing the border into Iraq.
The area targeted by Sunday’s raid lies close to the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which in the past has been a crossing point for fighters, weapons and money used to fuel the armed Sunni opposition against Iraq’s Shia-led government.
Thabet Salem, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that the US had appeared to have taken the building workers for infiltrators.
"The Syrian government will be very worried because from the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003 until now, nothing has happened [in Syria]. There have maybe been a few cases, but nothing like eight people killed inside Syria," he said.
"It will raise questions as to why this is happening at this moment – towards the end of the current US administration.
"Syria has deployed large numbers [of security staff] and they have checkpoints every four kilometres along the border. The Syrians have, according to my information, stopped five or six thousand people trying to cross the Syria-Iraq border throughout the last few years."
Iraq security
The raid comes 10 days after Iraqi forces arrested seven Syrian "terrorist" suspects at a checkpoint near the city of Baquba, a base for al-Qaeda fighters, the Iraqi government said.
But last month, Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president, told his US counterpart George Bush that Iran and Syria no longer pose a problem to Iraqi security.
Syria’s first ambassador to Iraq in 26 years took up his post in Baghdad this month, bringing more than two decades of discord between the nations to an end.
In September, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said she had met Walid Muallem, Syria’s foreign minister, to discuss Middle East peace efforts.
Syrian and American diplomats said the talks touched on Iraq, Lebanon and Middle East peace negotiations.
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UPDATE from Associated Press
US military helicopters have attacked an area along Syria’s border with Iraq, killing eight people in what the Syrian Government condemned as "serious aggression".
The raid, confirmed by a US military official in Washington, indicated the desert frontier between the two countries remains a key battleground 5½ years into the Iraq War.
The US official said the attack targeted elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network and that due to Syrian inaction the US was now "taking matters into our own hands".
A government statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency condemned the raid and said the Foreign Ministry had summoned the charges d’affaires of the US and Iraq to protest against the strike.
The attack occurred just before sundown in an area of farms and brick factories about eight kilometres inside the Syrian border.
Four helicopters flying along the Euphrates River struck the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, the Syrian Government said.
The helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction, firing on the workers inside and killing a number of civilians, including four children, the statement said.
The US military official said the special forces raid targeted elements of a network that sends fighters from North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East to Syria, where elements of the Syrian military are in league with al-Qaeda and other fighters.
While US forces have had considerable success in shutting down the "rat lines" in Iraq with help from Iraq and governments in North Africa, the Syrian part of the network has been out of reach, he said.
"The one piece of the puzzle we have not been showing success on is the nexus in Syria," the official said. "We are taking matters into our own hands."
The White House in August approved similar special forces raids across the border of Pakistan to target al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives. At least one has been carried out.
A resident of the nearby village of Hwijeh, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some of the aircraft in Sunday’s attack landed and disgorged troops who fired on a building. At least one of the dead was a construction worker, he said.
"Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its consequences," the government statement said.
"Syria also calls on the Iraqi Government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch an immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria."
AP