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Landis commented: “Satellite intelligence probably picked up smugglers, which were interpreted to be al-Qaeda. Quite possibly these poor people killed in the raid were a family of smugglers. In short, this may have been a simple botched operation based on bad intelligence. But in the larger scheme of things, it is the price of refusing to repair relations with the Syrians when they could have been.”

Joshua Landis is co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies and assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma. He writes the blog “Syria Comment,” which is read widely by officials in Washington, London and Damascus and by over 2,000 readers a day. Recent published articles have been on Islam in education, the political opposition and the reform process in Syria.