Syria may now have one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world, according to military analysts. CNN reported that the supply could include sarin, mustard and VX gases.
For months, U.S. officials have been predicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s downfall. Russia, previously in favor of fixing the existing government rather than replacing it, seems to have lost confidence in Asssad as well. However al-Nusra Front, one of the most effective armed factions against al-Assad, is so radical that the US is planning to classify them as international terrorists.
This classification has only been delayed because it may weaken the rebel fight. The region is in a Catch-22 scenario where the side effects of any treatment by outsiders may be worse than the disease.
Most analysts predicted the inevitable downfall of Assad to eventually require a fight-to-the-death, but Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad (alternatively spelled al-Mekdad) recently traveled to Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador with personal letters from Assad inquiring about the possibility of political asylum for himself and his family if he were forced to leave Damascus.
Al-Miqdad at one point told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV: “Syria would never use chemical weapons, even if it had them, against its own people.” However, Assad has continued to loose strength, and military experts believe his minority regime is likely desperate and unpredictable. Anonymous US officials told NBC news Thursday that the Syrian military has now loaded the ingredients for sarin nerve gas onto bombs and is awaiting orders from Assad to use them.
Despite over 18 months of unjustifiably heinous acts of cruelty, including imprisoning children as well as aerial and artillery strikes on civilians, squashing the minority regime of Assad won’t magically solve the complicated situation in Syria. Analysts fear the premature departure of Assad, without Jordanian troops prepared to provide security, would likely lead to the majority Sunni opposition engaging in a spree of revenge killings even worse than Assad’s atrocities.
As dangerous as al-Nusra may be if they seize Assad’s chemical weapon stockpile, the US fears this group won’t be able to maintain control of the country for long if they take over. Especially because US classification as a terrorist group will likely occur before the Dec. 12 Friends of Syria meeting in Morocco.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed President Barack Obama’s warning of severe consequences for the use of these weapons, stating: “Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria. And so, as part of the absolute unity that we all have on this issue, we have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account.”
Jihadists may use chemical weapons to ethnically cleanse Syria
Syrian political activist Yazan Abdallah shared with RT information that jihadist groups inside Syria might use chemical weapons to conduct “ethnic cleansing” against certain sectarian groups.
Syria moving its chemical weapons?
Western nations are voicing concern over Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons after reports that Assad is moving them.
Syrian Chemical Weapons Stockpile in Jeopardy
One of Israel’s top generals is warning that the violent uprising in Syria may put chemical weapons in the hands of terrorist organizations hostile to the Jewish State. The Israeli army’s second-in-command, Major-General Yair Naveh, said Syrian rebels may end up inheriting President Bashar Al-Assad’s vast stockpile of chemical weapons, what Naveh called the “largest” in the region. The rebels, he fears, could give missiles equipped with chemical warheads to Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda cells and those missiles, he emphasized, can hit every part of Israel’s territory.
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