Leading article: A risky and provocative raid

In international relations, silence can be as eloquent as any official statement. And the silence from the United States after Sunday's attack on a house in eastern Syria, just across the border with Iraq, told its own story.

Washington had ample opportunity to deny its involvement or to profess ignorance and announce an investigation, but it chose to do neither. An unnamed US official was quoted only as saying that American forces mounted a "successful" raid against foreign fighters threatening US troops in Iraq. The field of public relations was left to the Syrians, and they used it to maximum advantage.

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Precisely what happened at that remote cluster of buildings eight miles from Syria's border with Iraq, and why, is not known in every detail. What seems clear is that eight people, said by Damascus to be civilians, were killed in a raid on a farm. Washington has repeatedly accused Syria of turning a blind eye to non-Iraqis using its country's border regions as a safe haven from which to launch attacks on Iraq. But there has been no suggestion that such attacks have increased recently. If, as it appears, this was a punitive cross-border raid by US forces – perhaps designed also to deter others – it would be the first time that American troops were known to have crossed into Syria. As such, it would mark a highly undesirable and risky escalation, just as the armed conflict inside Iraq seems to be easing.

In London yesterday, Syria's foreign minister accused the US of criminal and terrorist aggression. While the incident is unlikely to precipitate a war, the all-round diplomatic cost could be out of all proportion to any deterrent effect the US action might have on cross-border attacks into Iraq.

Encouraged by the Europeans, Damascus is engaged in one of its periodic efforts to improve its standing abroad, but it is still cold-shouldered by Washington. Yet the Syrian border with Iraq is somewhere the US badly needs cooperation rather than confrontation. And in the Middle East, where Syria has been engaged in low-level talks with Israel for a while, its acquiescence will be key to an eventual peace settlement. Progress on either score now looks as though it will have to wait at least until the inauguration of the next US President.