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April 23, 2013

Israel Says Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons


By JODI RUDOREN and DAVID E. SANGER

TEL AVIV Israels senior military intelligence analyst said Tuesday that the Syrian regime had repeatedly used chemical weapons, and criticized the international community for failing to respond appropriately. The statements by Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, commander of the reasearch division in the intelligence directorate of the israeli defense forces, are the most definitive by an Israeli official to date regarding evidence of chemical weapons attacks on March 19 near Aleppo and Damascus. They are likely to put pressure on the Obama administration to act on the matter even as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wraps up a three-day visit to Israel, during which he said the intelligence about chemical weapons use remained inconclusive. The finding has potentially broad-reaching implications for American intervention in the Syrian civil war, which has entered its third year. President Obama has described the movement of chemical weapons as a red line for us that could provoke American military intervention, and last month in Israel he said proof of their use would be a game changer. But Washington has since been tentative in its assessment of the March 19 incident even as its allies sound the alarm. General Bruns comments came after the British and French governments, in a confidential letter sent last week to the United Nations Secretary General, said they had evidence Syria used chemical agents around Aleppo, Homs and perhaps Damascus. Speaking about Syria at a conference of Israels Institute for National Security Studies here, General Brun said it is quite clear that they used harmful chemical weapons, citing different signs including pictures of victims foaming at the mouth. He went beyond the March 19 attack to speak of continuous use of such weapons. The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons, General Brun said, describing a huge arsenal of more than 1,000 tons of substances stockpiled in Syria. The very fact that they have used chemical weapons

without any appropriate reaction this is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate. General Brun said the evidence suggested the weapon used was sarin gas, the same deadly compound that killed 13 people in a domestic terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. The number of victims in Syria is unclear. General Brun also said a second agent, a retardant of some kind, had been deployed. Though the Assad regime had claimed last month that it was the rebels who used chemicals, General Brun echoed previous statements by Israeli and American officials that it was clearly the Syrian government, and not the opposition, that had conducted the attacks. In recent months, according to Israeli intelligence reports, the embattled regime of President Bashar alAssad has been moving weapons, consolidating its stockpiles into perhaps 17 or 18 sites. If American officials have been more reluctant that their allies to come to firm conclusions, it may be because it would force Mr. Obamas hand. In August, the president told reporters that any evidence that Mr. Assad was moving the weapons or making us of them could prompt the United States to act. That would change my calculus, he said. That would change my equation. But when strong evidence emerged earlier this year that Mr. Assads forces were in fact moving their weapons -- at least from one depot to another -- the White House insisted that the action did not cross the line that Mr. Obama set. By move' the weapons, a White House spokesman said, Mr. Obama meant transferring them to a terror group, like Hezbollah. He said there was no evidence of that. Nonetheless, according to two American officials, Washington sent messages to President Assad that the threat had to be taken seriously. We saw a reaction,' one official said. Protection of the sites was improved. Still, American officials believe Mr. Assad would use chemical weapons as a last resort to stay in power. While the United States has drawn up plans to seize control of the weapons if need be -- by parachuting in troops to the key sites -- American officials have made it clear that they would prefer that regional forces take the lead. But if the weapons were actually used, as three American allies now contend, it would be far more difficult for Mr. Obama to argue that his red line' has not been crossed. Israels primary concern is that the chemicals could be seized by Hezbollah or other terrorist groups now operating within Syria. In January, the Israeli air force attacked a convoy of sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons it feared was about to be transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The attack also damaged a research complex near Damascus believed to be a training site for engineers developing chemical and biological systems.

We have to be very bothered by the possibility that chemical weapons are going to get into the hands of less responsible actors, because they dont manage calculations based on profit and loss that you can manage, General Brun warned at Tuesdays conference. There is the risk of chemical weapons crossing the border. It is certainly possible that there will be other incidents of attack against Israel by other orgs that obtain diff types of weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/middleeast/israel-says-syria-has-used-chemicalweapons.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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