Center for a New American Security

The NYT is reporting that the US has attacked several positions across the border in Syria:

BAGHDAD — Iran joined Syria on Monday in condemning what they described as an attack by four United States helicopters on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq that they said killed eight people.

The United States confirmed that a special operations mission took place in the area on Sunday but a senior military official gave no more details for now.

Is this a signal to Damascus not to interfere with the ongoing SOFA negotiations? A strike against a high-value target? And what should we make of our new heliborne doctrine of cross-border incursions? Discuss. (Quality rumint welcome.)

Update: And from our very own Andrew Exum (via Nick Blanford and Time magazine):

U.S. missile-firing drones reportedly killed at least 20 people on Sunday in Pakistan's South Waziristan province close to the Afghan border, an area
suspected of harboring Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Andrew Exum, a former U.S. army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and founder of the influential Abu Muqawama counter-insurgency blog, suggests that the American action in Syria shows that the tactic may simply have been exported. "The precedent has already been established of crossing borders into safe havens. Operational commanders would have to be thinking, if we can do it in Pakistan, why can't we do it in Syria," he says.

That's right folks, influential. You heard it here first.