They swarm from the sidewalk: women wearing black hajibs and men in white robes populate streets honking cars (men greatly outnumber women in the streets), soldiers with Kalishnikovs, children on bicycles, and boys pushing wheelbarrows full of fish, grapes or watermelon.

Among his travel posters, like the desk display promoting Gulf Air's service to Houston, Abu Yakkub laments that the world may not be safe for such children. He considers bin Laden as dangerous as Bush.

"The American people are not responsible for what happened to them. They were the victim," he says. "The invasion of Iraq was not only a mistake, it was a fault. We don't know Bush's goals for this work."

Abu Yakkub knows that the border closure forced him to close his customs business registering consumer goods in Al Hiri. He loses 500,000 Syrian pounds ($10,000 US) a month.

The average annual income in Syria is $1,200. Abu Yakkub laid off four men.

"These four had families," Abu Yakkub says. Within earshot of the Nike-wearing Mukhabarat, people mostly praise Al-Asad's response to America.

"Bashar is a wise man," Abu Yakkub says. "We trust him."

But back at the border, Youseff Salaam speaks his mind about his cousin's murder.

"The Syrian government has kept silence on this," Salaam says. "They try to make the people silent because they don't have the ability to confront the American troops."

The US government has not counted Syrian casualties, says State Department spokesman Justin Higgins.

Higgins referred questions about victim compensation to the Pentagon. The Centcom press desk in Baghdad failed to respond to this inquiry.

Nor has the Syrian government tracked its dead.

"The have been some, but not huge numbers," says Dr. Nezar Mihoub, the Foreign Media director at the Syrian Ministry of Information.

In addition to the six dead in Al Hiri, 80 died in a June 2003 American raid that penetrated dozens of kilometers into Syria. Perhaps one person in Al Hiri is wounded monthly.

"We denounce every type of killing," Mihoub says. "We denounce the Iraqis who have been killed, so, of course, we will denounce the killing of Syrians."

Mihoub suggests that the United Nations could help, yet Syria has not approached the Security Council, as Article 51 of the UN Charter advises, because, Mihoub says, the UN is in need of international support.

America's cross-border killings in Syria probably give that country the right of self-defense under Article 51, says Michael Byers, an International Law professor at Vancouver's University of British Columbia.

"Syria has clearly chosen not to exercise this right of self-defense," Byers says. "It has chosen not to go to war with the United States."

Conversely, attorney Byers cautions that the US could also invoke Article 51 to attack Syria if it proves that Al-Asad actively provides material support to jihadis joining the Iraqi insurgency.

"The US military is currently in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government," Byers says. "We have moved beyond the state of occupation to a state of invitation. So US forces are acting as agents of the Iraqi government."

For argument's sake, Byers won't contest the legitimacy of such arrangements. Other reasons, he says, prevent American allies from addressing their concerns about the invasion to the UN.

Al-Asad passed up his chance to woo the UN General Assembly in September, 2005. Presidential advisers feared a trip to the US would embarrass him, says Prof. Joshua Landis, a Fulbright Scholar spending 2005 in Damascus writing a history book and running the blog www.syriacomment.com.

"Bashar was originally going there to sell himself as a reformer, to sell the concept that Syria is a country on the road to progress with which the West should deal," Landis says. "He's the only person who can defend Syria. The United States did not want Bashar to come."

The economists in Al-Asad's cabinet wanted him to go, Landis says. Syria's stone age economy won't evolve as long as Bashar bumbles his way through international relations, says Syrian political analyst Dr. Taleb Ibrahim.

Ibrahim, a dentist from Damascus who speaks excellent English, served his military conscription in president Hafez Al-Asad's palace.

"If America will invest their money to develop all of the society, in health, in education, we will help you, as it has helped South Korea," Ibrahim says. "They can make the Korean experiment here."

Yet the State Department strong-arms countries into shunning Syria. They want Bashar isolated in his palace alone, Landis says.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice withdrew US Ambassador Margaret Scobey from Damascus in February 2005 after perceived Syrian involvement in that month's assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri's killers remain at large, and Scobey isn't returning to the heavily fortified US embassy anytime soon. Syria's continued meddling in Lebanese affairs, which violates UN Security Council Resolution 1559, Higgins says.

Better Syrian cooperation in UN investigation of the Hariri assassination would be, in Higgins words "something that will be apparent when we have it."

Scobey was not made available for interview. She will go back when "we think her return can be constructive and useful for our bilateral issues," says Higgins of the State Department.

The White House coordinates a policy of intense pressure. In mid-October, Bush hinted Syria may be a candidate for preemptive war.

"State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror," Bush said on Oct. 6, 2005.

Syria's long-term support of Hezbollah, an enemy of Israel, qualifies it a state sponsor of terrorism under the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which implemented American trade sanctions.

"We are not happy with the role Syria is playing in the region," Higgins says. It seems as if Syria can't please Washington, which often utters conflicting statements of praise and persecution days apart.

"What the ultimate demands are I think are unclear in the administration," Landis says. "I think that there are many people in the administration who are hoping to turn Bashar into Arafat or Saddam Hussein. There are some who would like to see the administration toppled, others who would be satisfied with Syria complying with a whole checklist of American demands."

That Syria calls the US presence in Iraq illegal and makes a distinction between terrorists and those who fight the US and British occupation galls regime-change advocates on the right.

Neocon Kristol editorialized in December 2004 for the capture of just Abu Kamal to help seal porous 600-kilometer border. Bashar's 12-foot tall, 100-plus kilometer sand and barbed wire berm is insufficient, and the State Department rejects Syria's comparison the US-Mexico line.

"Mexicans aren't crossing with machine guns," Higgins says. "We have been clear about what we need in Syria. We need the Syrians to stop the flow of insurgents into Iraq."

But the actual number of insurgents is classified, Higgins says.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4.

11/22/06

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Syrian travel agent Safwan Kikoluf Abu Yakkub in his office in Abu Kamal.

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