John Glaser: US, Iraqi Officials: Al-Qaeda Behind Syria Bombing

Elements of al-Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq have been moving into Syria to distribute weapons to the opposition, and to carry out attacks against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, according to US and Iraqi officials. These terrorists, often described as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind the suicide bombings on Friday in the city of Aleppo that killed at least 28 people, anonymous US officials told McClatchy Newspapers. Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said in an interview with the press on Saturday that AQI has sneaked across the border to aid the Syrian opposition forces with arms. "We have intelligence information that a number of Iraqi jihadists went to Syria," he said, adding that "weapons smuggling is still ongoing" from Iraq into Syria. "The weapons are being smuggled from Mosul through the Rabia crossing to Syria, as many of the same families live on both sides of the border," Assadi said. There is not yet substantial independent confirmation or evidence of these claims made by US and Iraqi officials, but if it's true, it may pose a number of problems. First, the claims appear to verify Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's allegations that al-Qaeda terrorists have been involved with the uprising against his regime, and go against claims by the Syrian opposition which held that Assad's regime had staged the bombings to discredit those who have protested this past year. This would harm claims by some influential figures in Washington that the US ought to support the armed groups, like the "Free Syrian Army" fighting the Assad regime.