NEW DELHI (AFP) - India Tuesday expressed concern at the death of civilians during a rare U.S. raid into Syria last month to allegedly kill the head of a smuggling network feeding arms and foreign fighters to Iraq.

The October 26 assault by ground and helicopter-borne troops on a Syrian village eight kilometers (five miles) from the Syria-Iraq border left eight people, including four children, dead.
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said New Delhi was “concerned at the incident ... inside Syria.”
“The scourge of terrorism affects many nations across the world. While this must elicit decisive responses, when such actions result in the death of innocent civilians, they defeat the very objective of the intervention,” he said in a statement.
New Delhi’s reaction more than a week after the raid comes amid criticism of Premier Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led administration that it is focusing on close relations with the United States and Israel at the cost of traditional ties with Arab countries.
New Delhi recently concluded a landmark civil nuclear pact with Washington while Tel Aviv has emerged as one of India’s important defense hardware suppliers.