Insurgents rare along divide between Iraq and Syria

RABIYA, Iraq

Iraq’s border with Syria extends for hundreds of miles through barren land patrolled by a relative scattering of security forces. But despite claims that exiled Saddam Hussein loyalists have been sneaking across to disrupt Iraq’s upcoming elections, the only evidence around one key outpost is faded slogans of Saddam’s banned Ba’ath Party painted on the wall of a decaying grain elevator.

Cigarette smugglers? Certainly. Foreign fighters? Sometimes.

But Iraqi and American security forces alike around the border town of Rabiya say they’ve neither seen nor heard of Ba’athists illegally crossing the border in recent months.

The claim has been raised with increasing force recently by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has blamed horrific bombings in Baghdad - including the ones Dec. 8 that killed at least 127 people - on an alliance of Sunni insurgents and Ba’athist loyalists who want to derail Iraq’s elections planned for March.

Two days after the attack, al Qaeda’s umbrella group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, posted a statement taking responsibility for the attacks.

“Nothing’s been communicated to me about Ba’athists,” Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said. He added he has been informed “about foreign fighters and insurgents.”

“What we’re seeing is some illegal smuggling, some contraband, smuggling of cigarettes - things like that,” Gen. Cucolo said.

To be sure, it is hardly likely that Ba’athists would identify themselves if captured. Former Ba’ath Party members could also try regular border crossings with their Iraqi passports, but many of the Ba’ath leaders still at large are on an Iraqi watch list and could need to rely on illegal crossings.

Though the number of arrests of obvious insurgents or foreign fighters crossing the border is relatively small, Gen. Cucolo said the Americans just don’t know what their presence here has deterred.

In Syria, the Iraqi Ba’ath Party spokesman, Khudair al-Murshidi, denied any links to attacks in Baghdad during an interview with Al Jazeera TV. But at nearly the same time, Mr. al-Maliki was clearly pointing his finger at Syria by calling on “neighboring countries that condemn the attacks to turn their words into actions.”

Iraqi officials have accused Syria of harboring Ba’ath Party militants - a charge denied by Damascus.

Despite officials’ denials of any Ba’ath-linked insurgents found along the border, there have been some recent arrests that point to insurgent ties.

Iraqi intelligence officers said officials stopped a Syrian man in a village near Rabiya last month who was disguised in a woman’s abaya - a black shapeless cloak worn from head to toe - and turned out to have inside information about the Oct. 25 ministry bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people.

The officers gave no further details and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their roles in intelligence gathering.

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