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Syrian border guards hurt in US attack

A number of Syrian border guards were wounded when US special forces in Iraq attacked a convoy of suspected high-profile members of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's toppled government, US officials said on Monday.

"It's not clear how they were injured, whether they were caught in a crossfire or what. But we are, I believe, still treating three of them," said one official.

Syria, which has had often tense relations with Washington over US charges it supports terrorism, said it had no comment and Washington signalled there had been no official government contact with Damascus over the incident.

The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack occurred last Wednesday in a "fairly remote" area near Iraq's western city of Qaim close to the Syrian border and that "some Syrian guards were injured."

US officials did not say whether US forces, acting on intelligence and backed by aircraft, crossed into Syria and were vague on how Syrian guards were involved. The convoy was apparently attempting to escape into Syria, the officials said.

Syria has been under heavy pressure from the US not to allow sanctuary to Saddam or any of his aides. Damascus says it is not harboring any Saddam aides and rejects Washington's terrorism charges.

The US officials said there was no indication Saddam or his two sons Qusay and Uday -- who head Washington's most wanted list after the Iraq war -- were killed in the attack on suspected Saddam "regime figures."

Investigators had not yet determined the identities of those killed, the officials said.

Washington announced new plans to pacify angry former Iraqi soldiers and create a new Iraqi army as two visiting US senators said American soldiers, who led the war that ended on April 9, could stay for more than five years.

US efforts to restore order in Iraq received another blow when an oil export pipeline exploded near the Syrian border on Monday. It was unclear what caused the latest of three Iraqi pipeline blasts this month.

The US has blamed diehard Saddam loyalists for looting, sabotage and attacks on its troops, but anti-US sentiment also springs from anger by many Iraqis at occupation of their country.

An Iraqi Oil Ministry official said he had no details on the blast. It followed one on Saturday that set a gas pipeline ablaze in the western desert and which Oil Ministry officials said was due to sabotage. Iraqi civil defense workers put out the gas fire on Monday.

In Baghdad, Richard Lugar -- a senior member of US President George W. Bush's Republican Party -- urged Bush to do some "real truth-telling" on how much commitment and money was needed to rebuild Iraq after the war and 35 years of Baathist rule.

"I think we're going to be here in a big way with forces and economic input for a minimum of three to five years," his Democrat colleague Joseph Biden told reporters.

Many Iraqis were glad to see the back of Saddam, but are impatient to get rid of their US and British occupiers. One grudge is the failure to instal an interim Iraqi government and get public servants back to paid work.

The US-led administration disbanded the old army last month along with security agencies and the information and defense ministries, making about 400,000 people jobless.

Walter Slocomb, an aide to chief US administrator Paul Bremer, said recruiting would begin next week for a new light infantry force that would eventually number about 40,000 to guard Iraq's borders and key installations.

He told a news conference former soldiers would now be paid a "monthly interim stipend" slightly lower than their previous salaries until a new Iraqi government could decide their future.

Anger among unpaid soldiers boiled into violence last week when US troops shot dead two protesters in a crowd that was stoning a military convoy as it drove into the administration's headquarters in Saddam's former palace compound in Baghdad.

Apart from facing protests by laid-off state workers, US troops have frequently come under fire in and around Baghdad.

A soldier was killed and one was wounded in a grenade attack on a military convoy south of Baghdad on Sunday, bringing to 19 the number killed by enemy fire in Iraq since Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

Oil prices fell on Monday as Iraq exported its first oil since the war. One million barrels of crude oil were loaded onto a tanker at the Turkish port of Ceyhan on Sunday.
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