In a sharp escalation of tensions in the region bordering Iraq, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday accused Syria of sending military equipment to Iraqi forces and warned Damascus: "We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments."
Mr Rumsfeld confirmed that a further 100,000 US troops were on the way to bring the strength of American forces in Iraq up to 250,000, although he insisted that this was not due to any setbacks, but was part of the pipeline of troops in the original war plan.
"We have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night-vision goggles," Mr Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing. "These pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces."
Mr Rumsfeld refused to say whether he believed that the Syrian government had sponsored the military shipments, but noted: "They control their border."
Asked if the US was threatening military action against Syria, Mr Rumsfeld said: "I'm saying exactly what I'm saying. It was carefully phrased."
"There's no question but that to the extent that military supplies or equipment or people are moving across the borders between Iraq and Syria, it vastly complicates our situation," he said.
The Bush administration has accused Russian companies of selling anti-tank guided missiles, jamming devices and night-vision goggles to Iraq. It was not immediately clear whether Mr Rumsfeld was suggesting that the night-vision goggles arriving via Syria were Russian-made.
The direct warning to Damascus came a day after President Bashar Assad intimated that he feared that his government, which has for years been on the US State Department's list of states which sponsor terrorism, might be the next target of President Bush's self-declared war on terror.
President Assad has called the US-led military incursion a "clear occupation and a flagrant aggression" against a United Nations member-state. "We will not wait until we become the next target," he told the Lebanese newspaper as-Safir, urging the Arab world to join in opposing the coalition forces.
Mr Rumsfeld also said that "hundreds" of exiled Iraqi militants opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime have been streaming into Iraq from Iran. They were complicating US war plans and would be "treated as combatants".
Mr Rumsfeld said that the Badr brigades, the military wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, were "trained, equipped and directed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard". He added: "We will hold the Iranian government responsible for their actions. We will view Badr corps activity inside Iraq as unhelpful."
The Defence Secretary's briefing was notable for the harsh tone of his remarks about pro-Saddam Fedayeen forces, whom he accused of killing those unwilling to fight US-led forces. He claimed that, to prevent defections, the militias were shooting people in the head, carrying out "sadistic executions" on the streets, ripping out tongues and beheading people with swords.
Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted in the face of sceptical reporters' questions that the invasion of Iraq was going to plan. Asked about the comment by the US army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt-Gen William Wallace, of V Corps, that "the enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against" and that the advance was being delayed, General Myers refused to acknowledge that the war plan was flawed.
"I think it's a brilliant plan," he said. "It's being executed."
President George Bush was said by officials to be "frustrated" with increasingly critical US media coverage of the war. Before he left to spend the weekend at Camp David, he too warned of US vengeance against pro-Saddam fighters. "Given the nature of this regime, we expect such war crimes, but we will not excuse them," he said. "War criminals will be hunted relentlessly and judged severely."