March 25, 2003

BUSTED:

Syria Claims U.S. Missile Strike Deaths (Associated Press, Mar. 24, 2003)
A U.S. missile hit a passenger bus on the Iraqi side of the border as it carried Syrian civilians fleeing the war, killing five people and wounding 10, Syria's official news agency reported Monday.

The bus was transporting 37 passengers when it was struck by the air-to-surface missile Sunday near the border of the two countries, the agency reported. Syrian officials refused a request by The Associated Press to go to an area near the site Monday.

A U.S. Central Command spokeswoman had no information on the report. She said, however, that U.S. forces do not target civilians and that they fire very carefully, using precision-guided missiles against military targets.

The Syrian agency said the wounded were taken to a Syrian hospital near the border and the dead were sent to a hospital outside the Syrian capital, Damascus. Officials reported relatives had retrieved the bodies.


Reading between the lines of a couple different reports, it sounds like this was actually a bus full of volunteers who wanted to fight for Saddam, headed from Syria to Iraq, and we likely bombed them on purpose to send a message to the Syrians to stop it. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 25, 2003 2:13 PM
Comments

Debka, an oft-mistaken source, reported they were actually Palestinian terrorists.



I don't think we'd care enough about volunteers to waste a bomb. We would care enough about terrorists, especially if we thought they might be taking WMD out of Iraq for possible use against Israel. That would be consistent with reports it was driving toward Syria.



It seems clear from the U.S. spokeswoman that the bus was viewed as a military target.

Posted by: Paul Jaminet at March 25, 2003 2:31 PM

Good, let's try that out on the Turks.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2003 3:08 PM

Paul:



There are two buses a day with about 50 aboard headed from Syria to Iraq with radicals from throughout the region on board.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2003 3:59 PM

If the radicals of the region are driving to where our bombs are falling, that's good news. I would be more alarmed if you told me radicals were driving away from Baghdad.

Posted by: Paul Jaminet at March 25, 2003 4:08 PM

I agree with Paul. The more bad guys in the kill box, the better.

Posted by: Mike Morley at March 25, 2003 4:44 PM

You're going to let busloads of al Qaeda, PLO, Hamas, etc. drive up behind our troops? I think not.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2003 6:14 PM

The best terrorist is a dead terrorist; so, if you know they're terrorists, kill them. I just suspect we have much better intelligence connections inside Iraq than inside Syria right now, so we're more likely to find them leaving than entering.

Posted by: Paul Jaminet at March 25, 2003 8:53 PM
« F-BOMBING SADDAM: | Main | AS SPECULATED: »