Norway mulls taking and destroying the bulk of Syria’s chemical arsenal

Source : http://breakingnews.sy/en

Norway is considering a request to take the bulk of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile for eventual destruction, an official said Tuesday. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ragnhild Imerslund told The Associated Press that the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which are working together to eliminate the deadly arsenal, would like to see the stockpile of chemicals destroyed in one country outside Syria. “But the best solution for them is not necessarily the best solution for Norway,” said Imerslund. She said Norway is refusing to handle chemical weapons loaded onto warheads and ready for use, but is considering accepting mixed chemicals and chemical precursors that can be mixed to make deadly nerve agents. The U.N. has informed Norway that Syria has 50 metric tons of mixed chemicals in the form of mustard gas and some 300-500 metric tons of materials needed to make nerve agents. Imerslund said her government is consulting with a working group made up of environmentalists, military analysts, lawyers, and other ministries. Norwegian officials have yet to select a possible site for destruction, a decision which could lead to protests from nearby municipalities and regions. A recent survey by InFact, a pollster, said 48 percent of the population opposed destroying Syria’s chemical stockpile on Norwegian soil, compared with just 30 percent who support it. Jorn Siljeholm, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, said Norway is capable of destroying the chemicals safely, providing it can be over months or even years. “It is technically feasible for Norway to destroy these chemicals. This is purely a political decision,” he said. Observers said the mid-2014 deadline for the destruction of Syria’s arsenal, which was set by the United States and Russia, could also be a problem. It is “a deadline that would be impossible to meet since Norway at the moment doesn’t have any facilities to destroy these chemicals,” said Nils Boehmer, a manager at Bellona, a Norway- based environmental group. Imerslund stressed that Norway would not be forced into meeting any deadlines unilaterally set by other organizations.

Associated Press writer Gary Peach in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.

Syrian army captures party of sarin from rebels in Hama

Source : The Voice of Russia

The Syrian army has seized two cylinders of the nerve agent sarin in a operation in the city of Hama, Press TV reported on Sunday.

The containers were found in militant hideouts in the city’s al-Faraieh neighborhood, which has been the scene of fighting between troops loyal to President Bashar Assad and the opposition armed groupings, the TV channel said.

Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid gas which causes respiratory arrest and death. Th poisonous agent has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction in UN Resoluti 687, Press TV said.

Voice of Russia, RIA

Militants used chemical material against civilians near Idlib: Syria

Source : Tehran Times

Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al- Jaafari has said that the foreign- backed militants in Syria have used chemical material against civilians during an attack on a town near Idlib.

Bashar al-Jaafari said at a press conference on Tuesday that the militants spread the contents of plastic bags containing chemical material during the attack.

Many residents were affected by the armed groups’ “heinous and irresponsible act,” the Syrian envoy said, warning that it was an attempt to “implicate the Syrian government on a false basis.”

Some of the victims were transferred to Turkey for treatment, Jaafari added.

The envoy went on to say that 'today or tomorrow Ankara and Western media would launch a new propaganda campaign against Damascus and claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against its own people.'

Reports say that two people were killed and 20 others injured in the militants’ chemical attack in Idlib.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama has said Washington did not know how chemical material was used in another recent attack in Aleppo.

The Syrian government requested the UN to dispatch a fact- finding mission to the country after reports circulated that the foreign-backed militants had used chemical weapons against civilians in Khan al-Assal district of the northwestern province of Aleppo on March 19. Over two dozen people were killed and more than 100 injured in the chemical attack.

Obama said at a press conference on Tuesday that, "If I can establish in a way that not only the United States but also the international community feel confident in the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, then that is a game-changer."

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of government security forces and army personnel, have been killed in the violence.

Damascus says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

(Source: Press TV)

Syrian Rebels Use Chemical Weapons – State TV

Source : RIA Novosti

BEIRUT, April 30 (RIA Novosti) – Militants in Syria have used chemical weapons against civilians with the aim of discrediting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Syrian state-run TV said on Tuesday.

“Terrorists gathered together residents of the city of Saraqib at the city’s southern gates and released a powder of unknown origin amongst them, causing asphyxiation, tremors and other breathing problems,” a Syrian official said on air.

The official also said those injured by the chemicals had been taken to hospitals in Turkey in order to use the incident as the basis for accusing government forces of using chemical weapons.

Both sides in the two-year-old civil war in Syria have accused each other of using chemical weapons in recent months.

Damascus has refused to let UN chemical weapons inspectors enter the country.

The White House said in a letter to lawmakers last week that intelligence gathered by the United States, with the help of opposition forces in Syria, shows “with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria.”

US President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons in the conflict a “red line” for potential American intervention. The White House letter said the attacks very likely originated with Assad’s forces.

At least 13 people were killed in an explosion in the center of the Syrian capital of Damascus earlier on Tuesday, state TV and activists reported.

The United Nations says almost 70,000 people have died in the two years since civil war broke out in Syria.

Syria says rebels may obtain chemical weapons from Turkey: minister

Source : Xinhua

DAMASCUS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Syrian Information Minister Omran al- Zoubi said that the chemical weapons used by rebels in a northern Syrian town were probably from Turkey, the state-run SANA news agency reported Saturday.

The remarks were made during al-Zoubi's visit to Moscow. He said the missile which targeted the northern town of Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province was launched from a rebel-held place, which was not far from the Turkish borders.

He added the Syrian government took the initiative to request a probe into the incident, reiterating Syria's support for letting Russian experts investigate the use of chemical weapons in the battered town.

Commenting on the fresh western allegations about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army in other areas, the minister said "the U.S.- British and western allegations in general on that issue do not have any credibility."

He held the western sides direct responsibility for what happened in Khan al-Assal.

The White House said Thursday that the "U.S. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin."

Syria brushed aside the accusations and slammed Washington as trying to use the chemical issue to threat a repetition of the Iraqi scenario in 2003

Russia Says Has Information Armed Groups Carried out Aleppo Chemical Attack

Source :

Russia said it had information proving that armed groups fighting against the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in an attack on a village in the northern city of Aleppo in which 25 civilians were killed.

"A case of the use of chemical weapons by the armed opposition was recorded early in the morning of March 19 in Aleppo province," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement shortly after the attack.

According to Syria’s official news agency SANA, at least 25 people were killed and many others injured after terrorists fired missiles containing "poisonous gases" into Aleppo’s Khan al-Assal village on Tuesday. Most of the casualties were women and children.

"We are very seriously concerned by the fact that weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of the rebels, which further worsens the situation in Syria and elevates the confrontation in the country to a new level," the Russian statement said.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi described the terrorists' use of chemical weapons as the "first act" by the so-called opposition interim government.

He also said that Turkey and Qatar, which support militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, bore "legal, moral and political responsibility" for the chemical attack in the northern city of Aleppo. The attack comes hours after Syria's opposition National Coalition elected Ghassan Hitto, a former US-based IT executive, as prime minister for what it called an interim government.

Foreign-backed militants, who had threatened to use chemical weapons against the army government forces and Assad supporters a few months ago, have denied using chemical weapons and accused government forces of being behind the attack.

Witnesses report onset of chemical warfare in Syria

Source : DEBKAfile

Extensive preparations by Syrian army units for launching chemical weapons against rebel forces have been sighted in the northern town of Homs, Western intelligence agencies told debkafile’s military sources Tuesday, March 19.

Damascus paved the way for resorting to unconventional weaponry with an accusation run by the state news agency SANA Tuesday that Syrian rebels had fired a rocket containing chemical substances in the Khan al-Assad area of rural Aleppo, allegedly killing 15 people, mostly civilians.

Rebels quickly denied the report and accused regime forces of “firing a chemical weapon on a long-range SCUD, after which 20 people died of asphyxia and poisoning.”

Neither of the accusations could immediately verified.

But a Reuters photographer said he had seen people come into two Aleppo hospitals with breathing problems after the attack. They claimed people were suffocating on the streets.

Western intelligence sources reckoned that for the Assad regime, Homs, the scene of fierce battles between government and rebel forces in recent days, is likely to be the first place where the Assad government resorts to chemical warfare. A rebel victory there would be a grave setback for the regime because it would sever the main highway linking the Syrian military forces fighting in the towns of Damascus, Latakia, Aleppo and Idlib.

Monday and Tuesday, therefore, heavy government reinforcements from the South and Damascus were piled onto the embattled town, along with large numbers of warplanes and attack helicopters, in an all-out effort to cut short the rebel advance.

debkafile’s military sources report that the importance Assad attaches to carrying the day in Homs is represented by the elite units he has assembled in and around the city: Heavy armored forces of the 4th and 5th Republican Guard Divisions were imported from Damascus and the 18th and 19th Divisions are there too, issued in the last few hours with chemical warfare gear.

Syrian ruler Bashar Assad can on no account afford to be defeated in the key town of Homs just when US President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive in the Middle East Wednesday. He will therefore use whatever it takes to prevent this happening, even chemical weapons if they are the only answer.

The allegation that the rebels have resorted to chemical warfare strongly points to an Assad ploy to go there himself and maintain it was only after the opposition went first. The emergence of dread unconventional weapons on the Syrian battlefield during the US president’s stay in the region is bound to dominate his talks with its leaders. It may even have the effect of altering his schedule and affect his itinerary.

Satanic UK-Qatari chemical weapon plot against Syria revealed

Source : www.islamicinvitationturkey

Leaked documents from a UK-based defense contractor has revealed a Qatari proposal to the firm to counterfeit a plan to claim that Syria has given the go-ahead for the use of chemical weapons in the country.

The document, which was allegedly hacked from the UK-based company Britam Defence’s website, disclosed Qatar’s proposal to the contractor in return for a large sum of money, Lebanese Al-Manar TV reported on Tuesday.

An email exchange between two senior officials at Britam suggested that the scheme was approved by Washington, explaining that Qatar would fund the militants in Syria to use chemical weapons.

“We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington,” a part of the leaked email read.

According to the documents, Qatar also suggested smuggling chemical warheads and rockets from Libya to the Syrian city of Homs.

Qatar apparently asked the British company to employ and film a Ukrainian person speaking and pretending to be Russian as part of “evidence” against Syria.

The new development comes as the head of Syria’s opposition coalition, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, recently announced that Qatar has pledged USD 20 million to the coalition.

The recent scheme is devised at a time when the Syrian army forces have managed to clear the capital, Damascus and its surrounding areas of the militants and restore security to northwestern mountainous regions, including Idlib.

The Syrian unrest began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed ever since.

The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

Damascus blames the West and its regional allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey for supporting the armed groups.