At least 40 Syrians (Assad loyalists) killed in Iraq

In the 'just sayin dept', if the Syrians soldiers were captured in the take-over of the crossing and taken into Iraq were witnesses to convoys of trucks head north and back again before the Syrian forces retook the crossing then they needed to die. Neither Syrian rebels nor anybody in Iraq would care about Syrian soldiers being sent back to join their ranks with the details of what they knew about how the 'take-over' was done etc.
If Washington was behind the attack the Iraqi soldiers killed were the only ones that had contact with the Syrian soldiers that were in Iraq for that 72 hours and the same group that killed some Turkish Sailors the night of the raid on some boats headed for Gaza would have been contracted to ambush this small convoy with the same type of arms that were smuggled into Syria in the 24 hours the border was not secure.

Just sayin .... the prize is not worth the risk in this case unless no witnesses is the goal and it was a planned ambush with lots of modern hardware being used so that same hardware would be available for use in Iraq and Iran for the 'rebels' rather than the Government.

(in part)
BAGHDAD: Dozens of Syrian soldiers who had crossed into Iraq for refuge were ambushed Monday with bombs, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in an attack that killed 48 of them and heightened concerns that the country could be drawn into Syria's civil war.

The fact that the soldiers were on Iraqi soil at all raises questions about Baghdad's apparent willingness to quietly aid the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The well-coordinated attack, which Iraqi officials blamed on al-Qaida's Iraq arm, also suggests possible coordination between the militant group and its ideological allies in Syria who rank among the rebels' most potent fighters.

Iraqi officials said the Syrians had sought refuge through the Rabiya border crossing in northern Iraq during recent clashes with rebels and were being escorted back home through a different crossing farther south when the ambush occurred. Their convoy was struck near Akashat, not far from the Syrian border.

Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, provided the death toll and said nine Iraqi soldiers were also killed. The Syrians had been disarmed and included some who were wounded, he told The Associated Press.

Read more: [link to www.dailystar.com.lb]
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: [link to www.dailystar.com.lb)]

Last Edited by MHz on 03/04/2013 06:56 PM