Syria shock in Iraq war

Assad’s forces hit ISIS thugs

SYRIA HAS entered the crisis in Iraq, dispatching military aircraft on Tuesday to attack rampaging Sunni extremists who are moving ever closer toward Baghdad.

ABC News, quoting an unnamed American official, said the U.S. has “pretty good information that the Syrians are behind the fighter aircraft” conducting strikes in western Iraq.

Involement by the regime of Bashar Assad would represent a major escalation of the Iraq crisis into a broader regional conflict.

Iraqi officials quoted by The Associated Press said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (r.) is ready to concede, at least temporarily, the loss of much of Iraq to the Sunni extremists in order to deploy the military’s best-trained and equipped troops to defend Baghdad.

With ISIS capturing large swaths of territory and ethnic Kurds controlling parts of northern Iraq, the country is looking like the fractured state the U.S. had hoped to avoid.

The threat to Iraq began when jihadists with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, staged lightning-quick raids seizing several Iraqi cities.

President Obama responded last week by sending 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces to help Iraq’s beleaguered government and troops.

About half of those troops are now in Baghdad and have begun to assess Iraqi forces in the fight against the Sunni extremists, the Pentagon said.