Rebels Charge That Assad Continues to Use Chemical Weapons On Thursday, the Syrian Support Group (SSG), a U.S.-based advocacy organization that has pressed Obama to provide the Syrian opposition with advanced weapons, issued a report that said two chemical weapons attacks were conducted on April 25 in the southern part of Daraya, a suburb of Damascus. One doctor working from the Daraya medical center said 75 victims were treated for symptoms including “muscle spasms, bronchial spasms, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and miosis” following a 1 a.m. rocket strike. Another 25 victims were sent to the medical center complaining of similar symptoms when a second attack hit the area at 7 a.m. local time, according to the SSG and a statement from the local coordinating council of Daraya, a media group affiliated with the Syrian opposition.

U.S. believes Syria used chemical weapons but says facts neededU.S. intelligence agencies believe Syria’s government has likely used chemical weapons on a small scale, the White House said on Thursday, but added that President Barack Obama needed “credible and corroborated” facts before acting on that assessment. The disclosure of the assessment, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said was made within the past 24 hours and the White House said was based in part on physiological samples, triggered immediate calls for U.S. action by members of Congress who advocate deeper U.S. involvement. But while President Barack Obama declared that Syrian use of chemical weapons would be a game-changer, his administration made clear it would move carefully – mindful of the lessons of the start of the Iraq war 10 years ago.

Lawmakers demand ‘action’ in Syria after intel confirms chemical weapons use Top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle declared Thursday that the “red line” in Syria has been crossed, calling for “strong” U.S. and international intervention after administration officials revealed the intelligence community believes chemical weapons were used. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, were among those urging swift action.

McCain: “Chemical weapons being used” in Syria “The president of the United States said that if [Syrian president] Assad used chemical weapons it would be a game changer, that it would cross a red line,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., adding that in light of recent reports that chemical weapons were used on a small scale in Syria, “I think it’s pretty obvious that red line has been crossed.”

Rebels: West should react to Syria’s chemical attacks Several groups including the Syrian Network for Human Rights say Assad has been using weapons like sarin gas far more frequently than has been reported. Early this week, an intelligence chief for the Israeli Defense Forces said Israel concluded Assad used them last month. In a report released exclusively to USA TODAY, the network said Syrian human rights observers such as itself have concluded that Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons on “10 separate locations in Syria” in four provinces over the span of several months starting in December. “Beginning at Homs, and then in the suburbs of Damascus, and then at two attacks inside Damascus in Jobar neighborhood,” Damascus-based activist Sami Ibrahim, of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, told USA TODAY. Ibrahim says his group — a Syrian group of human rights activists that collects victims’ accounts of the conflict — can back up its claims of chemical weapons use by Assad. Its report says Assad has been using “different types” of chemical weapons, including sarin gas, on at least two separate occasions in suburban Damascus and Aleppo. “We have videos of those killed, we have photos, we have testimony from the eyewitnesses, from the doctors inside the hospitals; they are speaking inside the video,” Ibrahim said of his report’s findings.

US has a range of military options in Syria after revelation of regime use of chemical weapons The military options could include establishing a no-fly zone or a secured area within Syria, launching airstrikes by drones and fighter jets and sending in tens of thousands of ground forces to secure the regime’s chemical weapons caches. Setting up a no-fly zone over Syria would present a greater challenge than it did in Libya because Syria has a more sophisticated and robust air defense system. Crippling it would require jamming the radars and taking out the missile sites, or possibly even using some type of cyberattack to interfere with the system.

Syria Claims Disruption of Rebel Supply Lines The official SANA news agency said that soldiers fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad had overwhelmed the opposition in the town, Otaiba, to such an extent that they “discovered a number of tunnels which were used by terrorists to move and transfer weapons and ammunition.” Terrorist is the word used by Mr. Assad to describe armed opponents, backed by the West and many Arab states, seeking his overthrow in a revolt that is now more than two years old. The rebels see Otaiba as a crucial way station for supplies of weaponry and food in their campaign to advance toward the capital, Damascus, and have been resisting a furious government onslaught there for weeks. Rebel fighters on the ground said Thursday that, despite the official claims, the insurgents were still holding on to some parts of the town. An activist who had been involved in the fighting and who wished to be identified only as Ammar said the claimed capture of Otaiba was an exaggeration. “Both sides are still fighting,” the activist said. “The regime are attacking from the east side, the Free Syrian Army from the west side.”

FPI Board of Directors Urge U.S. Action After Assad’s Chemical Attacks “Other nations, such as Iran and North Korea, will be watching the American reaction closely.  If the U.S. government itself declares that a red line has been crossed in the use of such weapons but then takes no action, this may give Iran, in particular, confidence that it can move forward in developing a nuclear weapon without fear of any action by the United States.  It may choose to ignore President Obama’s repeated warnings that development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable to the United States. This is a critical moment for the Obama administration.  We urge the President and his advisers to take the necessary action to save countless innocent lives, deter further dangerous actions by Assad and others, and restore confidence in American global leadership.”

Syria rebels launch attack in central Hama after months of calmHeavy clashes erupted for the first time in months in Syria’s central city of Hama Thursday as rebels tried to relieve pressure on comrades under attack from President Bashar Assad’s forces elsewhere, activists said. They said at least seven people were killed and dozens wounded when fighting broke out at 4 a.m. in Hama, a historic symbol of dissent against four decades of Assad family rule. Most of the reported casualties were civilian, they said.

Investigative Reports

Revealed: tragic victims of Syria’s nerve gas war The chemical attack that killed Yasser Yunis’s family was a small, almost private affair. Had the 27-year-old car mechanic not managed to struggle out of the doorway of his home in Aleppo on to the street in the darkness of night, clutching his infant son to his chest, no one might have ever known what wiped out the family. They died twitching, hallucinating and choking on white froth that poured from their noses and mouths. Their doctors believe that they were killed by nerve gas.

A Hired Killer in Syria Reconsiders His Role Abu Rami said he was paid 15,000 Syrian pounds, or $215, per month, which is around the minimum wage in Syria. Payments were higher, he added, for those who accepted missions outside their own neighborhoods and for killing armed opponents. A confirmed kill earned a bonus of 2,000 pounds… Life changed for Abu Rami in January, however, when his older brother, in a bid to extract him from the shabiha, took him to a workshop organized by an opposition group that promotes dialogue over violence. The group, Building the Syrian State, known by its acronym B.S.S., is a political movement founded by a longtime opposition figure, Louay Hussein, that focuses on removing Mr. Assad by political, not military, means… “It was an astonishing result,” Mr. Joudeh said. “In just four days he experienced a dramatic change in both behavior and personality.” For example, Mr. Joudeh said, one of the workshop’s first activities was to write down roles models based on their spheres of influence. Abu Rami put down the leader of Hezbollah and Mr. Assad: but “after the first day of the workshop, he went back to that paper and tore it off the wall,” Mr. Joudeh said.

Seven Times The White House Discussed The Syria Red Line Ever since August 2012, the Obama administration has defined the use or proliferation of chemical weapons as a game-changer that would be a “grave mistake” for the Assad government. But the “red line,” and threat of a resulting response by the U.S., has never been clearly defined by the White House. Obama has qualified his statements by saying the red line would be crossed with “a whole bunch” of chemical weapons. He has also never explicitly promised a military response to the use of chemical weapons, though his administration’s comments have suggested such a possibility. For now, the White House is only saying it will investigate further, and stay prepared.

Analyses & Op-Eds

The Case for Intervening in Syria: More than two years into the uprising, the balance of power does not look like it’s tipping in favor of the rebels. A bloody, grinding stalemate in Syria will not only empower Islamist extremist groups, who are currently still limited in their support and power inside Syria. It will also increase tensions in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. Both scenarios have catastrophic consequences for regional stability and for the position of the United States in the Middle East. The Syrian crisis has long since reached the point where, the least bad–and the least risky–scenario is a serious international effort to shift the military balance toward resistance forces, and specifically those that are not radical Islamist. Multilateral intervention is needed toward this end, and only the United States can lead it.

Syria’s uneasy Christians feel both sides closing in Traditionally regarded as loyal to Assad, Christians are facing aggression from Islamist rebels, and, whatever their sympathies, are becoming a trapped minority in a disintegrating country.

Is the U.S. Set to Intervene in Syria? “Since the mid-1920s chemical weapons have been taboo—not that they haven’t been used by Mussolini in Ethiopia, the Japanese during a battle in China, or the Egyptians in Yemen, but the only major use of chemical warfare has been by Saddam Hussein against the Iranians and his own Kurdish population in the 1980’s.” The use of chemical weapons in Syria would be the first time they’ve been used since the Chemical Weapons Convention was signed in 1993, Juul notes, “So maintaining the taboo here is important.”

The Thick Red Line: White House Cautious on Chemical Weapons Use in Syria Catching up with the assessments of France, Great Britain and Israel, the Obama administration now says it believes that chemical weapons, including the lethal nerve agent sarin, have been used in Syria. Given that President Obama has declared chemical weapons use a “red line,” this could mean war. But it almost certainly won’t.

Lee Smith: Obama’s Meaningless ‘Red Line’? It is very unlikely that the administration is now going to find sufficiently compelling evidence, because the White House has designed its conditions so that they would be virtually impossible to meet, evidently because it does not want to do anything to bring down Assad. In a conference call this afternoon, a senior Obama administration official explained that the White House is “pressing for a comprehensive U.N. investigation that can credibly evaluate the evidence and establish what took place in association with these reports of the use of chemical weapons.” That investigation, said the official, “needs to have credible access in order to ascertain exactly what took place.”

My new paper, prepared for a briefing in Washington, D.C. that took place on January 15, 2013, is now out and is titled “Syria 2013: Rise of the Warlords.” It should be read in conjunction with my previous briefing “The Shredded Tapestry,” and my recent essay “The Creation of an Unbridgeable Divide.”

On the Broken Hand

Free Syrian Army general: ‘Clear proof chemical weapons used’ “We took some samples of the soil and of blood. The injured people were observed by doctors and the samples were tested and it was very clear that the regime used chemical weapons,” General Salim Idriss told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. Idriss said his doctors gave the samples to “observers” of the civil war in Syria, but refused to name which groups. Both Britain and France now say soil samples indicate “some use of chemical weapons.”

Hagel skeptical of Syria chemical weapons claims Any U.S. response to Syria will be based on American intelligence findings, Hagel said in his first public remarks since an Israeli official alleged Monday that the Syria government had used chemical weapons. “Suspicions are one thing,” Hagel told reporters traveling with him. “Evidence is another.”

Syria crisis: UN to study soil samples for proof of sarin gas United Nations investigators will examine soil samples collected by western intelligence agencies and enter Syrian refugee camps in an effort to assess claims that the Assad regime has used sarin gas against its opponents. Proof of sarin use would increase pressure on the Obama administration which, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is deeply reluctant to intervene in what could be another protracted and unwinnable conflict.

Syria: We wouldn’t use chemical arms against Israel “Even if Syria does have chemical weapons, our leadership and our military will not use them either against Syrians or against Israelis, above all for moral reasons and secondarily on legal and political grounds,” Omran al-Zoabi was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying at a Moscow university. He said Syria would not resort to chemical weapons even if it had to go to war with Israel and use “all resources”.

Syrian army seizes strategic town near capital Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad seized a strategic town east of Damascus on Wednesday, breaking a critical weapons supply route for the rebels, activists and fighters said. Rebels have held several suburbs ringing the southern and eastern parts Damascus for months, but they have been struggling to maintain their positions against a ground offensive backed by fierce army shelling and air strikes in recent weeks. “The disaster has struck, the army entered Otaiba. The regime has managed to turn off the weapons tap,” a fighter from the town told Reuters via Skype. “The price of a bullet will go from 50 Syrian pounds to 1,000 Syrian pounds ($10) now, but we must pay and retake it. It’s the main if not the only route.”

Syria crisis: ‘Heavy clashes’ at Aleppo Minnigh airbase Rebels took hold of a key military position outside the Minnigh airport on Tuesday and launched a raid the following day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. “The rebels, who have laid siege to the airport for months now, entered it for the first time around dawn,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the UK-based activist group, told AFP news agency. Heavy fighting was taking place in the grounds, he added.

Minaret of famed 12th century Sunni mosque in Syrian city of Aleppo destroyed Standing inside the mosque’s courtyard, a man who appears to be a rebel fighter says regime forces recently fired seven shells at the minaret but failed to knock it down. He said that on Wednesday the tank rounds struck their target. “We were standing here today and suddenly shells started hitting the minaret,” the man says. “They (the army) then tried to storm the mosque but we pushed them back.” The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events depicted.

Pope Francis calls for two Syria bishops to be freed Pope Francis on Wednesday appealed for two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria to be freed and for the bloodshed to end, speaking during his general audience on St Peter’s Square. The pope told around 100,000 people present on the square that there were “contradictory reports” about the fate of the two bishops and asked that “they be returned quickly to their communities”.

Syria accuses U.N. envoy Brahimi of interfering Brahimi told a closed-door session of the United Nations Security Council last Friday that Damascus was “surprised and embarrassed” by a January offer of talks from opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, and its response was “slow and confused”. At the conclusion of his remarks, which were later circulated by U.N. diplomats, Brahimi suggested Assad “voluntarily forego” the right to stand for another term as president in an election scheduled for next year. Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement that if Brahimi wished to continue his role, he must show impartiality and realize that “the Syrian people are the only decision-makers who will choose their representatives”. “The briefing … was marked by interference in the Syrian Arab Republic’s internal affairs and a lack of neutrality which should characterize his mission,” the ministry in a statement.

Investigative Reports

Qatar faces backlash among rebel groups in Syria Tiny, U.S.-allied Qatar has emerged as one of the strongest international backers of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Many in the Syrian opposition laud Qatar, saying it has stepped in while the international community has failed to intervene or send military aid that would help tip the balance in favor of the rebels, three years into the uprising-turned civil war that has ravaged the country and killed more than 70,000 people. But its role has also caused tensions within the ranks of the highly fragmented rebellion and political opposition. Some rebel brigades complain they are left out in the cold from the flow of money and weapons, sparking rivalries between secular and Islamist groups. Fighters and opposition activists worry that Qatar is buying outsized influence in post-Assad Syria and giving a boost to Islamist-minded groups if the regime falls.

What is the Syrian Electronic Army?One key question revolves around how close the group is to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has been involved in a bloody civil war for more than two years. On that subject, all the signs are of “tacit support,” says Helmi Noman, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He has been tracking the Syrian Electronic Army since May 2012, when it first emerged as an organized group with a Facebook page and then its own website. “What we know is their domain name was registered by the Syrian Computer Society. We looked into the Syrian Computer Society and discovered that it was headed by al-Assad in the 1990s, before he was president,” said Noman. “It’s hosted on the network of the Syrian government, which is interesting because it’s the first time we’ve seen a group with questionable activities being hosted on a national computer network.”

From Belgian school to Syrian battleground A camera shakily films a group of rebel fighters preparing to pray, lined up in rows, their weapons at their feet. A young man walks into shot and takes off his rifle before briefly turning towards the camera. “That’s Brian,” says Ingrid de Mulder, pointing at her nephew in the online video on her computer. “I’m 100% sure. That’s him. No doubt.” Nineteen-year-old Brian de Mulder from Antwerp is one of hundreds of Europeans authorities believe to be in Syria. “It’s not the Brian brought up by his mother,” says Ingrid. “Brian was athletic, he was sporty, he was helping everybody. We never saw him like this. For me it’s a programmed robot.”

Syria Open Backyard Refineries as War Reaches Oil Field “There is also little proof the national coalition has much oil under its control,” David Butter, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa program at London-based Chatham House said. “It’s all very sketchy.” The fields of the east and northeast are in areas where Islamist militants predominate, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in an April 24 report. “The majority of the fields are controlled by al-Qaeda; some by the Free Army; some others by the Kurds,” said Rami Abdurrahman of the Coventry, England-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “We cannot confirm what percentage each controls.”

Analyses & Op-Eds

Bennett Ramberg: Syria’s Chemical Genie Recent statements from US officials have not been reassuring. In January, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that the US was not pursuing options that involve “boots on the ground” to secure Assad’s arsenal during the conflict. At the same news conference, Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that preventing the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons would require such clear, comprehensive intelligence that obtaining it is “almost unachievable.” Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 17, Dempsey added that he had no confidence that US forces could secure the arsenal given the number of sites. Such remarks from senior military authorities suggest that Obama’s warnings may be hollow. Worse, they inspire little confidence that the US can deal with future cases in which countries with nuclear assets find themselves in revolt, civil war, or political collapse – and with compromised domestic atomic safeguards risking the spread of nuclear havoc to other regions. Such risks demand examination and planning. But, to rely on the US government alone to plot the most effective strategy in the shadow of possible internal group-think is asking too much. Outside vetting – including published reviews by congressional investigative bodies, think tanks, and scholars – could add important insights.

Could John McCain’s roadmap for intervening in Syria work? “No one should think that we have to destroy every air defense system or put tens of thousands of boots on the ground to make a difference in Syria. We have more limited options. We could, for example, organize and overt and large-scale operation to train and equip Syrian opposition forces. We could use our precision strike capabilities to target Assad’s aircraft and Scud missile launchers on the ground, without our pilots having to fly into the teeth of Syria’s air defenses. We could use similar weapons to selectively destroy artillery pieces and make their crews think twice about remaining at their posts. We could also use Patriot missile batteries outside of Syria to help protect safe zones inside of Syria.”

Chemical weapons in Syria: Bashar al-Assad hovers over a red line In the past, Damascus has backed down when faced with the credible threat of force: for example, in 1998, under Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, when Turkey massed tanks on Syria’s border until it ceased supporting Kurdish insurgents; or in October 2005 when Bashar sent an emissary to sue for peace in Washington as the Bush administration readied reprisal options against his funnelling of jihadi volunteers into US-occupied Iraq. The problem now – in addition to the passivity of the international community – is that the Assad clan and its hardline, mostly Alawite support base sees this conflict as existential. They are prepared to destroy Syria and, after more than 70,000 deaths, wade through the blood of the Syrian people to impose their right to rule. So it is no longer about testing limits. There are none.

My new paper, prepared for a briefing in Washington, D.C. that took place on January 15, 2013, is now out and is titled “Syria 2013: Rise of the Warlords.” It should be read in conjunction with my previous briefing “The Shredded Tapestry,” and my recent essay “The Creation of an Unbridgeable Divide.”

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