WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered rare praise for Syria Tuesday for battling militants trying to slip over its border into Iraq but said more such action was necessary.
Syrian forces captured two "terrorists" Monday in a dawn clash with extremists who included former bodyguards of Saddam Hussein, official media in Damascus had reported.
The gunbattle on Mount Qassioun overlooking the Syrian capital was the second such firefight with extremists in recent days and comes amid intense US pressure on Syria to stop militants slipping over its border into Iraq.
Rice, speaking to reporters at the State Department after talks with her French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy, said: "I, too, have been reading the reports of clashes between Syrian forces and Iraqi insurgents or Saddam Hussein's bodyguards.
"If that's the case, then that would be a good thing," she said.
But she said in the same breath, "It's been the case in the past that Syria has done as little as possible. I hope that this time Syria will do as much as possible to deal with that border."
Syria's SANA news agency said the clash took place after numerous days of searching by security forces, who were now on the trail of other members of the extremist group.
According to the Al-Jazeera satellite channel, two people were killed in the clash, at least one of whom was a member of the group.
Rice and Douste-Blazy discussed the situation in Lebanon during their talks.
Rice said they talked about "the need for there to be continued progress toward the complete fulfillment of Resolution 1559."
Passed in September, UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for the disarmament of militias, full sovereignty of the Lebanese government and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
The final demand was met in April, and Lebanon last month held its first parliamentary elections free of Syrian tutelage.
The moves came as an international probe continued into the assassination of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, who was killed in a February Beirut explosion blamed on the Lebanese and Syrian regimes.
Both have vehemently denied orchestrating the attack.
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