Iraq has dispatched extra police to boost security along its border with Syria a week after a US military raid into the neighboring country, an interior ministry spokesman said Sunday. The additional forces, from western Anbar province, were sent to secure areas where foreign fighters are known to infilitrate Iraq, said Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf. The policemen are expected to be deployed around the border town of Al-Qaim, a known transit point for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria. US forces a week ago raided a Syrian village in an operation American commanders said targetted an Iraqi militant leader known to smuggle fighters into Iraq. Damascus said eight civilians were killed in the attack. The incursion has triggered fresh tension between Damascus and Baghdad and Syria has reportedly reduced its forces from border areas. Meanwhile, Iraq expects Washington's reply on proposed changes to a draft security agreement after the US elections, an aide to the prime minister said Sunday. Yassin Majeed said the US will respond to Iraq's amendments to the pact after Tuesday's elections so the new president-elect can be informed of the status of the talks. Since May, US and Iraqi officials have been trying to hammer out a new security agreement by the end of the year that would keep US troops in the country until 2011. The current draft calls for all US forces to leave by Dec. 31, 2011 unless Iraq asks them to stay. It also gives Iraqi courts limited jurisdiction over U.S. troops accused of major crimes committed off post and off duty. But the pact faces opposition from Iraqi lawmakers, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet is pressing for changes in the draft text before submitting it to parliament for approval. Al-Maliki wants more jurisdiction over US troops and guarantees that Iraqi territory will not be used by the US to launch attacks on neighboring countries. Baghdad also wants to remove language that could allow the US to stay beyond the end of 2011. Without a new agreement, the US would have to suspend all security and assistance operations in the country. Iraqi authorities are feeling more confident since a sharp drop in violence in the country after the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and the routing of Shiite militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq last spring.
