Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq    

    RAMADI, Iraq, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Iraq sent on Saturday dozens of its security forces to the Syrian border to prevent al-Qaida militants from slipping into Iraq, a provincial security source said.

    "Dozens of Iraqi police quick reaction vehicles moved early in the morning to the area near the town of al-Qaim, some 350 km northwest of Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The source said that the move came after a meeting held Friday between the commander of U.S. troops in Anbar province, Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani and Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Assal, police chief of the province in western Iraq.

    Last Sunday, Syria's official media reported that American helicopter-borne troops launched an assault on a building in a Syrian village along the border with Iraq, killing eight civilians.

    A U.S. official said the raid on the village was designed to kill al-Qaida militants, pointing out that among those believed killed was Abu Ghadiya, "one of the most prominent foreign fighter facilitators in the region."

    U.S. and Iraqi officials frequently accuse neighboring Syria of allowing insurgents to use its territories as a base for sending fighters and weapons to conduct attacks inside Iraq.