Syrians hold funerals after bomb civilian building killing eight, including four children [October 27 2008]

Families in this Iraqi border village prepared to hold funerals today for eight people, including four children, they say were killed when the U.S. military launched a rare attack in Syrian territory.

Clergy washed the bodies as angry residents chanted, "May God's wrath fall on them." The Syrian government said four U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown Sunday on the Sukkariyeh Farm about five miles inside the Syrian border. The government statement said eight people were killed, including four children.

A U.S. military official in Washington said Sunday that special forces conducted a raid in Syria that targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq."We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.