Al Qaeda in Iraq revives pipeline through Syria after long hiatus

Six tedious months passed until their handlers felt that it was safe to move the men again. In April, they were smuggled across the Iraqi border; within days, two were dead, among the suicide bombers who have killed at least 370 Iraqis in a wave of spectacular attacks over the past several weeks.

The third Tunisian disappeared. The fourth was captured and, according to a senior US military official, provided interrogators with this account of their travels.

His statement, combined with what other sources had previously indicated to US and Iraqi intelligence, confirmed what American officials had suspected: After a long hiatus, the Syrian pipeline operated by the organization Al Qaeda in Iraq is back in business.

The revival of a transit route that officials had declared all but closed comes as the Obama administration is exploring a new diplomatic dialogue with Syria even as Washington remains concerned by Syrian activities - including ongoing support for the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas as well as activities involving Iraq.

Last Wednesday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro arrived in Syria for their second visit since Barack Obama's inauguration as president. Two days later, however, Obama renewed US sanctions against Syria, accusing Damascus of supporting Mideast terrorism and undermining Iraqi stability.

"I think it sends the message that we have some very serious concerns," Robert Wood, the acting spokesman for the State Department, said of the sanctions renewal. Feltman, he added, was "in Damascus to talk about . . . how we can get Syria to change its behavior and see if it's willing to really engage seriously in a dialogue, be a positive role in the Middle East. Up until now, Syria hasn't played that positive role."

The Damascus government made no public comment on the Feltman-Shapiro visit. Efforts to reach the Syrian Embassy in Washington on Friday, before it closed for the weekend, were unsuccessful.

The Bush administration frequently criticized Syria for the transit of foreign fighters, suggesting that the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad was involved in the traffic. But US military and intelligence officials remained less certain.

"What we think right now is that we just don't know how much their senior leaders know about the foreign fighter network," said the senior US military official, who discussed intelligence matters last week on the condition of anonymity. "As you can imagine . . . if they knew, it's not something they would be talking about."

"But we do think that the knowledge of these networks exists at least within the Syrian intelligence community," he said. "What level, if it's low or high up, we just don't have a good gauge on."

General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, told Congress late last month that the Al Qaeda in Iraq pipeline through Syria had been "reactivated." General Ray Odierno, the US military commander in Iraq, confirmed Friday that "some elements of foreign fighters continue to traffic through Syria." But officials have been careful not to directly accuse Damascus of supporting the traffic.

Syria, Odierno said, "has the opportunity" to stop it. He called on the Syrian government to "demonstrate a commitment to eliminating the use of its soil as a staging area."

Overall violence in Iraq is "at or near the lowest level since the summer of 2003," Odierno said in a news conference, but the recent suicide attacks "remind all of us that the situation still is fragile in some areas." He said that the "high-profile attacks" in and around Baghdad, the capital, and Mosul were designed to "garner attention and spark sectarian discord" as US troops prepare to withdraw from Iraqi cities by this summer and from the country by the end of next year.

The military is particularly concerned about the area around Mosul, in the northwest near the Syrian border, which officials have described as the last bastion of Al Qaeda in Iraq's strength.

US and Iraqi officials have accused the Sunni group in all the recent attacks, perpetrated against Shi'ite neighborhoods and shrines.