Quote Originally Posted by Kraco
While I agree it was Sora they were after, your statement is still not entirely accurate. These ninja were from the same Fire Country, so they could have easily had an insider in the hidden village supplying them intel, including who's in the team. They might have counted on Naruto being in. After all, this kind of mission is still the best one to give to Naruto; no need to travel to distant lands when the trouble still resides within Fire Country.
That is a bit of a stretch, the best mission to give to Naruto as stated by everyone else is none at all. Asuma's team would have been ready to go unless they happened to plan this out with Akatsuki. These kind of assumptions don't seem to fall under a master plan, but with this anime I suppose anything is possible.