WASHINGTON, 14 April 2003 — US forces engaged Syrian nationals in combat in Baghdad overnight, killing many of them, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.
Rumsfeld’s assertions in US television interviews echoed similar comments by army Gen. Tommy Franks, the US commander, but both men stopped short of saying what Washington might do about it.
“In a firefight, a lot of them got killed last night,” Rumsfeld said of the Syrians in an interview with CBS television.
Other foreign nationals also have engaged US forces in Baghdad, but the largest number were from Syria, he said in an earlier interview with NBC television.
It was not clear whether they had any connection to the Syrian government, he said.
“People were busy fighting them. They weren’t asking their biographies,” he said.
Franks in an interview with Fox television referred to them as “mercenaries,” and said some had been taken prisoner.
Syrian fighters have entered Iraq by the busload, Rumsfeld said.
“Some we stopped. The ones we could find, we turned them around and sent them back. And some we’ve impounded and put into enemy prisoner-of-war camps,” he said.
Franks said some Iraqi leaders were seized trying to escape the country and were in US custody in western Iraq.
Rumsfeld said Syria was “a very active sponsor of terrorists,” citing its role in allowing Iranian-backed Hezbollah rebels move into Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon.
“I guess to a certain extent you are known by your friends, and being on the terrorist list is not someplace I’d want to be if I were a country or a leader of a country,” he said.
