Marines forces reinforcement on the border with Syria, Washington calls on Damascus to halt sneaking, religious clerics support al-Sader
Syria-USA, Politics, 4/17/2004

The Shiite clergy Muqtada al-Sader appeared yesterday in al-Kofa, after several days in hiding, defying the occupation forces and announcing his total rejection to desolve "al-Mahdi army" in a sharp Friday sermon, that went in contradiction with what stated by his circles recently that he had given up all his conditions and placed himself at the disposal of the religious clerics which seemed to have decided to support him and consider any aggression against him as being against it."

This, however, came while Falujja leaders were having direct negotiations with the occupation authority which is presumed to continue today, resulted in an American decision to withdraw for several hundreds of meters, with the objective of permitting people of the city reaching its main hospital, at a time when negotiators talked about an agreement that those who distort the bodies of the three Americans three weeks ago will be tried before local courts in al-Falujja.

Meantime, The US Department Of State announced that its had renewed a warning to Syria this week on the need to tighten its control on the border with Iraq, where Marines forces reinforced its presence. The spokesman for department Richard Boucher said that this message was conveyed " erbally" from the state secretary Colin Powell to foreign minister Farouk al-Shara who receives it on Thursday from the American ambassador in Damascus Margaret Scooby.

He added that the message concentrated on that Syria has an interest to the foundation of a united and stable Iraq, noting that Powell "urged Syria to work intensively with the international community to achieve stability in Iraq.. The message also explained to Syria that it has to monitor sneaking operations of terrorists and persons supporting the fighters in Iraq through its borders." Boucher continued "we feel that Syria has taken certain steps, but they can and they have to do more to this effect."

In the same context, director of operations in the central leadership Gen. John Satler said that the reinforcement of the American naval force ( Marines ) in west Iraq, in the border area with Syria enabled controlling better the sneaking of foreign fighters during the past weeks. He said from Doha that these efforts poured on an area called " mouse route" in al-Qaem area where the Euphrates river crosses the border to Syria. He added that large number if foreign fighters are existing around al -Qaem and that the American forces "achieved a great success in this front, which means we found and killed many of these cells which used to give support to such moves. "

Previous Stories:
  US congratulates Syria on Evacuation Day; urges help   (4/16/2004)
  American institute for opening dialogue with Syria   (4/5/2004)
  Syrian ambassador presents his credentials to President Bush   (4/2/2004)

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