BAGHDAD: Gunmen killed at least 40 Syrian soldiers and government employees who were being sent back to Syria by Iraqi authorities yesterday after fleeing a rebel advance, Iraqi officials said.
Around 65 Syrian soldiers and officials had handed themselves over to Iraqi authorities on Friday after rebels seized the Syrian side of the border crossing at the Syrian frontier town of Yaarabiya.
Iraqi authorities were taking them to another border crossing further south in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim stronghold, Anbar province, when unidentified gunmen ambushed their convoy, a senior Iraqi official said.
No group has claimed responsibility.
The fighting on Iraq’s border illustrates how Syria’s near-two-year conflict, with its sectarian overtones, could spill over its borders, dragging in neighbouring countries and further destabilising the region.
Iraq’s Anbar province is experiencing renewed demonstrations by Sunnis against the government of Shia Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki over what they see as the marginalisation of their minority and misuse of terrorism laws against them. Syria’s rebels are mostly Sunnis fighting to topple President Bashar Al Assad’s government, dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiasm.
Some 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war and nearly a million have fled across its borders, the United Nations says. Reuters
