#Current@SYRIA

A statue of Hafez al-Assad got pulled down in the centre of Raqqa as rebels stormed the town Photo: AFP

The Syrian civil war spilled over into Iraq when a convoy carrying Assad troops and officials to the border was ambushed, leaving 49 men dead.

The loss of life of seven Iraqi police and 42 Syrians, who had fled across the border into Iraq at the weekend to escape an attack by rebel fighters, was the worst incident in the Syrian civil war to take place in a neighbouring territory.

The fight was a direct consequence of the rebel ascendancy in the far-flung northern reaches of the country, where most of a key provincial capital, Raqqa, also fell into rebel hands yesterday, according to activists.

Pictures showed a statue of Hafez al-Assad, the father and predecessor of President Bashar al-Assad, being pulled down in the centre of Raqqa as rebels stormed the town.

The battle in Iraq shows the volatility that the Syrian conflict and the country's own internal divisions could spark in what remains a fractured society ten years after the allied invasion.

The 65 soldiers and officials had fled from rebel forces led by the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, who mustered overwhelming force against the Yaarabiya border crossing in the far north-east of Syria over the weekend.