U.S. forces staged attack in Syria, U.S. official says

[The General]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military conducted a "successful" strike into Syria on Sunday to kill a suspected al Qaeda facilitator, a U.S. official said Monday.

The American official, who would not be identified but has access to U.S. intelligence, identified the intended target of the attack as "Abu Ghadiya," an Iraqi whose family he said has been active in smuggling money, weapons and foreign fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the classified nature of the operation, also confirmed that U.S. helicopters and military special operations forces carried out the attack.

Syrian officials lashed out at Washington on Monday for a "sheer violation of international law," saying the U.S. attack killed eight people and wounded one.

Syria's state news agency SANA said four U.S. helicopters crossed the border and struck a farm about 5 miles inside Syria before returning to Iraqi airspace. The raid occurred about 4:45 p.m. local time on Sunday, the agency said.

U.S. forces staged attack in Syria, U.S. official says - CNN.com

It said the helicopters hit a civilian building under construction on the farm, killing a father and his four sons, a married couple and another man.

However, local officials said seven men were killed, according to an Associated Press report.

And an AP journalist at the scene in the village of Sukkariyeh on Monday reported seeing the bodies of seven men at funerals in the village.

Villager Jumaa Ahmad al-Hamad told The AP he saw four helicopters in the area on Sunday. Two landed, he said.

Ten minutes of shooting followed, al-Hamad told The AP, after which he walked to the scene and found the bodies of his uncle, Dawoud al-Hamad, and four of his uncle's sons.

Another witness told the AP he saw two men taken away by U.S. forces.

"The U.S. is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, so this is an outrageous crime for a country who is responsible for maintaining peace and security in the whole world to act this way," Jihad Makdissi, a spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in London, told the BBC.

The attack occurred near Al-Bukamal, a town home to a Red Crescent camp for Iraqi refugees. The town is across the border from the western Iraqi city of Qaim, a major route for Sunni Arab fighters battling U.S. troops in Iraq.

Syria has said it has made efforts to secure the 600-kilometer desert border, but Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the U.S. commander in western Iraq's Anbar province, told reporters last week that much of the border is "uncontrolled."

"We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement, not much, through Anbar because of our activities out there," Kelly said. But he said Iraqi intelligence believes al Qaeda operatives and others "live pretty openly on the Syrian side, and periodically we know that they try to come across."

Syrian Embassy spokesman Makdissi said the United States cannot take matters into its own hands.

U.S. forces staged attack in Syria, U.S. official says - CNN.com

After Sunday's attack, Damascus, Syria, demanded that Iraq's government "immediately investigate this serious violation," SANA reported. And the Syrian government summoned U.S. and Iraqi diplomats to the Foreign Ministry in Damascus to condemn the attack, according to a Syrian diplomat in Washington, who asked to remain anonymous.

The diplomat said Syrian officials insisted that Iraq must not be a staging ground for attacks on Syrian territory.

U.S. forces staged attack in Syria, U.S. official says - CNN.com