Syria has arrested more than 1,200 people trying to cross the border into Iraq in recent weeks and sent many of them back to their own countries, Syria's UN ambassador said.
Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad also denied rumors that terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be seeking shelter in Syria.
Mekdad said Syria suspected that the people arrested -- mostly foreigners -- intended to carry out illegal activities in Iraq so they were arrested and sent back to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya and other countries.
"We gave a lot of information to the United States on these issues, which prevented many attacks, but regrettably, the United States did not recognize such kind of help," he said in an interview Wednesday.
Syria's ambassador to the US, Imad Mustafa, said Tuesday that Syria had stopped security and military cooperation with the US in the past few months after Washington failed to respond to repeated Syrian overtures. Mekdad said contacts continued "until a few weeks ago."
Syria provided the US with intelligence on al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But US President George W. Bush ordered sanctions against Damascus a year ago after longstanding complaints that Syria was supporting terrorism and undermining US efforts in Iraq -- allegations it denies.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has steadily stepped up her rhetorical attack, from saying Syria was not doing enough to guard the border with Iraq to accusing it of permitting insurgents to stage their operations from Syria.
Syria has also been mentioned in speculation about the whereabouts of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the chief of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
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