| The United States has formed and deployed an Iraqi security force to patrol the border with Syria. U.S. officials said the Iraqi border force was formed to halt the smuggling of weapons and Islamic insurgents from Syria. They said thousands of Arab nationals from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have entered Iraq to join the Sunni insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition. The Iraqi force along the Syrian border contains more than 1,500 troops, officials said. The force was deployed in September in an attempt to bolster counter-insurgency operations. "We saw the level of enthusiasm of the security forces that have been put in place, over 1,500 people to act as border guards along the Syrian-Iraqi border," House terrorism subcommittee chairman Rep. James Saxton, who returned from Iraq last week, said. "And to see these men and women stand up and tell us how proud they are to be able to do something for their country for the first time in their lives because they volunteered to do it, not because they had to do it, was very uplifting to us." |