{"id":1649,"date":"2003-07-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-18T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2003-07-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-07-18T19:00:00","slug":"syrian-casualty-estimates-rise-80-people-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2003\/07\/18\/15\/00\/syrian-casualty-estimates-rise-80-people-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Casualty Estimates Rise – 80 People Killed"},"content":{"rendered":"

I noticed a followup to the US attack on Syrian SUVs and towns story<\/a>. Apparently, it was a convoy of natural gas smugglers<\/a>, and 80 people were killed by the US on the basis of ludicrous Israeli intelligence. Israel is understandably eager to provoke a confrontation between the US and Syria, given that they are in a struggle with Syria for control of Lebanon and regional hegemony. I note that US forces are said to have bomed not some random town or village but a “housing compounds” because, as we all know, “housing compounds” are vaguely disreputable.<\/p>\n

A former very senior CIA official told UPI: “Too often the Israeli intelligence product is hard to distinguish from Israel political messages.” The Times report said Task Force 20, supported by helicopters and AC-130 gunships, struck the convoy and a housing compound “in a village not far from the Syria border.” Task Force 20 captured 20 Iraqis, all of whom were later released, the Times and other news reports said. But one senior administration official told UPI the attack crossed “25 miles or more” into Syria, and the Pentagon had initial reports of 80 Syrians “who were KIA (killed in action).” … Instead of capturing any high-value Iraqi targets, the Task Force destroyed “a gas smuggling ring,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. This official labeled the attack “a colossal blunder.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Earlier here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I noticed a followup to the US attack on Syrian SUVs and towns story. Apparently, it was a convoy of natural gas smugglers, and 80 people were killed by the US on the basis...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}