Syrian Warplanes Strafe Aleppo as Rebels Commandeer Tanks


By DAMIEN CAVE

Published: August 1, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo intensified on Wednesday as United Nations observers there reported that Syrian jets had fired rockets into contested neighborhoods and that rebels had commandeered tanks and other heavy weapons.

Opposition leaders — a few hours after President Bashar al-Assad urged his forces to step up the fight — also said that they had found dozens of bodies in a suburb of Damascus in the aftermath of the Syrian army’s house-to-house search for rebel fighters and activists. This claim of a new massacre came as the rebels faced severe criticism themselves for what appeared to be their brutal summary execution, one day earlier, of suspected pro-government gunmen on the streets of Aleppo, recorded and uploaded on the Internet.

Videos purported to have been taken in the Damascus suburb, Jdeidit Artouz, showed bodies lined up under bloodstained sheets, as a narrator gave an estimated count that continued rising: 37, 42, and then even more.

“I counted 52 bodies,” said Abu Abdullah, a resident who said he had helped move the dead to a local mosque before burial. “I’m really shocked. Why here?”

The bodies were found near an area where rebels said fighting had flared in the past week. But analysts said the bodies appearing outside Damascus in a town also filled with refugees — along with reports of renewed fighting in the capital and an escalation of combat in Aleppo, Syria’s largest metropolis and commercial epicenter — all suggested that the 17-month-old conflict was becoming increasingly intense and bitter, with more front lines and more bloodshed.

“It’s a rapid escalation,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Once you start using fixed wing aircraft and you have a city under full revolt, it’s clear that the Assad regime is not going to stop and is not breaking. We’re entering a new phase of this conflict.”

Aleppo, which for much of the anti-Assad uprising had been relatively stable, now is the site of the most vicious fighting. For nearly two weeks, the Syrian army has been battling rebel troops for control of the city, and for the first time, the United Nations said on Wednesday what rebels had been saying for days: the Syrian army was using jet fighters in its arsenal of heavy weapons aimed at crushing the opposition. And they are not just flying, as in the past; now, according to the United Nations monitor mission in Syria and videos showing flashes of light bursting from dark jets, they are firing.

“Our observers confirmed fighter aircrafts firing rockets and cannons — heavy machine gun fire,” said Sausan Ghosheh, a spokeswoman for the United Nations monitor mission.

Mr. Tabler noted that the Syrian warplanes are not yet dropping bombs. But the calculated escalation to the use of jets seemed to be part of a concerted effort by President Assad to rally his supporters by making clear that he would not limit his military effort. In rare published remarks seemingly designed to marshal government forces and dissuade anyone thinking of defecting, he called on Syria’s military to show “more readiness and continued preparations” to confront “internal agents” seeking to destabilize his battered country, according to the official SANA news agency.

To commemorate the 67th anniversary of the founding of the Syrian Army, he also used his remarks to blame opponents for seeking to keep Syria from “improving our society to the level of developed countries.” And he said Syria’s “battle with the enemy takes multiple forms.”

This week it has become increasingly clear to outside military analysts that the fighting is likely to drag on in Aleppo. Helicopters thwacked overhead Wednesday as clashes broke out around several more police stations, which have become a focal point for rebels seeking to hold neighborhoods or gain ground in new areas.

Taxi drivers skittered down streets charging four or five times the usual fare, while residents said water, food and electricity seemed ever scarcer.

Alarmed by the worsening deprivation, the United Nations World Food Program on Wednesday sent food assistance for 28,000 people in Aleppo, with plans to deliver the aid through partners like the Syrian Red Crescent. In July, United Nations officials said they provided food assistance to 541,575 people in Syria, falling far short of its goal of 850,000 people, because of fighting in several parts of the country.

With the rebels now possessing tanks – United Nations observers did not have information on how many, or where they might be deployed – the conflict seems to be moving ever further away from the six-point plan for peace outlined by Kofi Annan, the special Syria envoy, whose plan seems increasingly irrelevant. Instead of steps toward a cease-fire, both sides appear to be rushing into the breach of civil war.

Rebels and activists reported skirmishes in several parts of the country on Wednesday, including heavily Christian areas of Damascus that had been quiet, and the battle for public opinion also expanded.

Opposition figures drew special attention to the bodies in JdeiditArtouz – sending an alert to reporters with a link to live-streaming video of a mass funeral procession and mass burial – just one day after rebels in Aleppo caused an outcry among rights groups and others over their videotaped public executions of men identified as pro-government militiamen.

Those executions attracted hundreds of thousands of views on You Tube, and were cited by Russia, the Syrian government’s most important foreign backer, as new evidence of brutality by Mr. Assad’s armed adversaries, whom he routinely calls terrorists.

“Bloody reprisal of the opposition forces over the government supporters in Aleppo proves that human rights are violated by both sides,” said Gennady Gatilov, the deputy Russian foreign minister, in a Twitter message.

Human Rights Watch described the killings as a “war crime,” and as it began to take on greater significance as a symbol of rebel street justice, the rebels and activists tried pivoting on Wednesday afternoon to an example of what they described as a regime “massacre.”

Susan Ahmad, a spokeswoman for the revolutionary council of Damascus, an anti-Assad group, argued in an interview that many of the victims in Jdeidit Arouz were civilians, and that the town had been a refuge for families fleeing fighting in Damascus. “Almost all of the dead were extrajudicially executed,” she said.




Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and Dalal Mawad in Beirut, Alan Cowell in London, an employee of The New York Times in Aleppo, Syria, and Rick Gladstone in New York.

Western governments and mainstream media have admitted that Al Qaeda is fighting against the secular Syrian government, and that the West is supporting the Syrian opposition … which is helping Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda Is Not “Benefitting From” the Syrian Uprising … It’s CAUSING It
Posted on July 31, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog
No, Terrorists Are Not Just Showing Up to “Exploit” the Chaos

The mainstream media admits that Al Qaeda is fighting against the Syrian government.

The Syrian opposition is largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

However, the pro-war media says that Al Qaeda is simply capitalizing on the chaos created by the civil war between the people and the government.

But the top U.S. intelligence official has said that the terrorist bombings in Syria are the work of Al Qaeda:

Bombing attacks in Damascus and Aleppo since December “had all the earmarks of an al-Qaeda-like attack,” James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“And so we believe al-Qaeda in Iraq is extending its reach into Syria,” he said.

His comments confirmed earlier reports that US officials suspected al-Qaeda’s hand in the bombings and follows a recent video message from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in which he endorses the uprising against Assad’s rule.

A new report out of the RAND Corporation confirms that since December:

Al Qaeda has conducted roughly two dozen attacks, primarily against Syrian security service targets. Virtually all have been suicide attacks and car bombings, and they have resulted in more than 200 deaths and 1,000 injuries.

The U.S. intelligence chief also notes that Al Qaeda’s top leader endorses jihad against the Syrian government:

His comments confirmed earlier reports that US officials suspected al-Qaeda’s hand in the bombings and follows a recent video message from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in which he endorses the uprising against Assad’s rule.

And see this.

In fact, terrorists have been responsible for much of the violence inside Syria for many months.

For example, according to the large German newspaper FAZ, those massacred in Hama were on the same side as Syrian leader Assad.

Outside monitors have confirmed that the situation on the ground is much different than it is being portrayed in the Western media.

So Al Qaeda is not “capitalizing” on the violence … they are the ones who have been doing most of the violence for many months.

And the U.S. has been arming the Syrian opposition since 2006, even though Secretary of State Clinton admits that will help Al Qaeda.

American government officials and corporate media are applauding Al Qaeda attacks in Syria. See this, this and this. Rather than condemning suicide terrorist attacks, they simply say Al Qaeda’s bombings show that the “window is closing” for Assad, and he should give up power. (Samples here, here and here – the latter tweeted by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice right after an Al Qaeda bomb attack.)

The U.S. government has been consistently planning regime change in Syria and Libya for 20 years, and dreamed of regime change – using false flag terror – for 50 years.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/al-qaeda-is-not-benefitting-from-the-syrian-uprising-it-is-causing-it.html

A blog? Whatever.

Al-Qaeda is known to be aiding the rebels, but it is a stretch to conclude that the uprising is solely the responsibility of Al-Qaeda.
Hezbollah are involved and rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There is no proof that the west is supporting the uprising and the NY Times article many internet secondary sources cite has been misused. The CIA are trying to stop the flow of weapons to Al-Qaeda, not supplying them as has been suggested by more questionable sources.

Everybody seems to think they know so much about Al Qaeda and what they are doing.

I find that hilarious.

Well we know that the CIA is aiding the rebels, and we know that the CIA originally trained "Al Qaeda" in the first place, so um.... yeh I guess you can say that "Al Qaeda" is aiding the rebels.

Al Qaeda = CIA

1 + 1 = 2

You once stated that Al-Qaeda didn't exist, so which is it?

The article which sparked the hysteria about US complicity:

C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.

The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.

By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts.

American officials and retired C.I.A. officials said the administration was also weighing additional assistance to rebels, like providing satellite imagery and other detailed intelligence on Syrian troop locations and movements. The administration is also considering whether to help the opposition set up a rudimentary intelligence service. But no decisions have been made on those measures or even more aggressive steps, like sending C.I.A. officers into Syria itself, they said.

The struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify significantly in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters. President Obama and his top aides are seeking to pressure Russia to curb arms shipments like attack helicopters to Syria, its main ally in the Middle East.

“We’d like to see arms sales to the Assad regime come to an end, because we believe they’ve demonstrated that they will only use their military against their own civilian population,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said after Mr. Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, met in Mexico on Monday.

Spokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels, some details of which were reported last week by The Wall Street Journal.

Until now, the public face of the administration’s Syria policy has largely been diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The State Department said Wednesday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would meet with her Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on the sidelines of a meeting of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers in St. Petersburg, Russia, next Thursday. The private talks are likely to focus, at least in part, on the crisis in Syria.

The State Department has authorized $15 million in nonlethal aid, like medical supplies and communications equipment, to civilian opposition groups in Syria.

The Pentagon continues to fine-tune a range of military options, after a request from Mr. Obama in early March for such contingency planning. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators at that time that the options under review included humanitarian airlifts, aerial surveillance of the Syrian military, and the establishment of a no-fly zone.

The military has also drawn up plans for how coalition troops would secure Syria’s sizable stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons if an all-out civil war threatened their security.

But senior administration officials have underscored in recent days that they are not actively considering military options. “Anything at this point vis-à-vis Syria would be hypothetical in the extreme,” General Dempsey told reporters this month.

What has changed since March is an influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels. The increasingly fierce air and artillery assaults by the government are intended to counter improved coordination, tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, according to members of the Syrian National Council and other activists.

Last month, these activists said, Turkish Army vehicles delivered antitank weaponry to the border, where it was then smuggled into Syria. Turkey has repeatedly denied it was extending anything other than humanitarian aid to the opposition, mostly via refugee camps near the border. The United States, these activists said, was consulted about these weapons transfers.

American military analysts offered mixed opinions on whether these arms have offset the advantages held by the militarily superior Syrian Army. “The rebels are starting to crack the code on how to take out tanks,” said Joseph Holliday, a former United States Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan who is now a researcher tracking the Free Syrian Army for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

But a senior American officer who receives classified intelligence reports from the region, compared the rebels’ arms to “peashooters” against the government’s heavy weaponry and attack helicopters.

The Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, has recently begun trying to organize the scattered, localized units that all fight under the name of the Free Syrian Army into a more cohesive force.

About 10 military coordinating councils in provinces across the country are now sharing tactics and other information. The city of Homs is the notable exception. It lacks such a council because the three main military groups in the city do not get along, national council officials said.

Jeffrey White, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who tracks videos and announcements from self-described rebel battalions, said there were now about 100 rebel formations, up from roughly 70 two months ago, ranging in size from a handful of fighters to a couple of hundred combatants.

“When the regime wants to go someplace and puts the right package of forces together, it can do it,” Mr. White said. “But the opposition is raising the cost of those kinds of operations.”




Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon. Souad Mekhennet also contributed reporting.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all

The CIA would have you believe that Al Qaeda is a large and powerful terrorist organization consisting of Arabs/ Muslims, who want to destroy America because they hate our freedom.



That Al Qaeda does not exist.

Oh there IS a large and powerful terrorist organization, but it the one that is funded by the powerful criminal Banking Cabal.

(This does not mean that all Bankers are members of that exclusive club.)

If you want to find them, follow the fake fiat money if you can. Its hard to follow because it just disappears into thin air. Then the accounting departments get hit by a missile or a plane, or there is an unfortunate fire in some office that destroys all the evidence.

There is no Civil war and there is no revolution against Assad, in Syria.

CIA and Mossad death squads are behind Syria "blood bath." There is no "people's revolution."

http://youreportcorruption.com/component/hwdvideoshare/viewvideo/394/government/cia-a-mossad-death-squads-behind-syria-bloodbath-there-is-no-peoples-revolution-there

Russia / Moscow has accused the west of stirring up these tensions.

Civilians are saying that they are being shot at by unknown snipers and death squads. There is no fighting. This is a typical CIA and Mossad method.

Foreign fighters and snipers and terrorists are what is happening in Syria. There is no mass political movement against Assad. This is no a Civil war. These are death squads imported by the CIA trying to stir things up.

This is a massive media propaganda campaign to make it look like Syria is having a civil war. This is the M.O. of the corporate Globalist Cabal, the Illuminati etc. what ever you want to call them.

The people of Syria want the Syrian army to come in and get these invading terrorists and stop them from shooting people.

People of the world need to wake the hell up and stop buying into all of this propaganda before world war III gets started.

Breaking News from the underground:

Which by the way, is set to start the second week of August according to "sources."

(Don't ask.)

(The New York times never tells anyone what their sources are so I'm not telling mine.)

So hold onto your hats, after the event at the Olympics, America is fixing to start world war III.

Lets hope this is not true folks.

This is end game, 2012.

There is a guy called Abdul Halim Khaddam, who is a sunni Muslim who served as President of Syria from 1984 to 2005. Abdul Halim was one of the few Sunni Muslims to make it to the top of the Alawite-dominated Syrian leadership.

He was born 15 September 1932. Khaddam is almost 80 years old and he is being groomed by Paris and by NATO, probably/Perhaps? for the purpose of being installed as the new and agreeable dictator of Syria.

Khaddam leads an opposition group National Salvation Front in Syria (NSF) which promised to bring down the government of Bashar Assad peacefully by 2006. Of course that didn't happen.

So now, he is getting some help.

He actually served as Vice-President.

See below regarding his resignation.

As the new President strengthened his grip on the Baathist bureaucracy, Khaddam, and other members of the "old guard" of the government, gradually lost influence. He announced his resignation on 6 June 2005, during the Ba'th Party Conference. That made him one of the last influential members of the "old guard" to leave the top tier of the government. The announcement came at a point when his political wings had already been clipped, but still the most powerful Sunni member in an Alawi Shi'ite government. After resigning, he relocated to Paris ostensibly to write his memoirs.[1]

In an interview with Al Arabiya on 30 December 2005, Khaddam denounced Assad's many "political blunders" in dealing with Lebanon. He especially attacked Rustum Ghazali, former head of Syrian operations in Lebanon, but defended his predecessor late Ghazi Kanaan - Syria's Interior Minister. Khaddam also said that former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, to whom Khaddam was considered close, "received many threats" from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

Exile

The Syrian parliament responded the next day by voting to bring treason charges against him, and the Baath Party expelled him. Following the Khaddam interview, the UN Commission headed by Detlev Mehlis investigating the Hariri murder said it had asked the Syrian authorities to question Bashar al-Assad and Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. According to Daily Star, the Commission interviewed Khaddam on 5 January 2006.

On 14 January 2006, Khaddam announced that he was forming a "government in exile", predicting the end of al-Assad's government by the end of 2006. His accusations against Assad and his inner circle regarding the Hariri murder also grew more explicit: Khaddam said he believed that Assad ordered Hariri's assassination.

Khaddam is the highest ranking Syrian official to have publicly cut his ties with the Syrian government, with the possible exception of Rifaat al-Assad.

Khaddam leads the opposition group National Salvation Front in Syria (NSF) which promises to bring down the government of Bashar Assad peacefully. The NSF had its last meeting on 16 September 2007 in Berlin, where some 140 opposition figures attended. On 16 February 2008, he accused the Syrian government of assassinating a top Hezbollah fugitive "for Israels sake."


Role in the 2011 Syrian uprising

Khaddam is considered an opposition leader to the current Syrian regime by the United States and the EU. In an interview on Israel's channel 2 TV, Khaddam acknowledged that he received money and help from the US and the EU in order to overthrow the Syrian regime.

Excuse me, but that is ridiculous.

Furthermore:



Are you just playing silly games in this thread? You say they don't exist, then you suggest that no-one knows what they do, then you say it's another Al-Qaeda and you that you know all about it and provide no sources in the usual fashion.

Please, stop wasting my time and stick to the topic.

Well, that was a waste of time. The video is from Russia Today. Can you find anything more tabloid?

It's a wild claim belonging in the realms of fantasy and I'm not allowed to ask about the source?

Of course it's not true. It's not even worth being in this thread.

The Specter of Syrian Chemical Weapons


August 2, 2012 | 0901 GMT





By Scott Stewart

The unraveling of the al Assad regime in Syria will produce many geopolitical consequences. One potential consequence has garnered a great deal of media attention in recent days: the possibility of the regime losing control of its chemical weapons stockpile. In an interview aired July 30 on CNN, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said it would be a "disaster to have those chemical weapons fall into the wrong hands -- hands of Hezbollah or other extremists in that area." When he mentioned other extremists, Panetta was referring to local and transnational jihadists, such as members of the group Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been fighting with other opposition forces against the Syrian regime. He was also referring to the many Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which have long had a presence in Syria and until recently have been supported by the al Assad regime.

The fear is that the jihadists will obtain chemical weapons to use in terrorist attacks against the West. Israel is also concerned that Palestinian groups could use them in terrorist attacks inside Israel or that Hezbollah could use such weapons against the Israelis in a conventional military battle. However, while the security of these weapons is a legitimate concern, it is important to recognize that there are a number of technical and practical considerations that will limit the impact of these weapons even if a militant group were able to obtain them.

Militant Use of Chemical Weapons

Militant groups have long had a fascination with chemical weapons. One of the largest non-state chemical and biological weapons programs in history belonged to the Aum Shinrikyo organization in Japan. The group had large production facilities located in an industrial park that it used to produce thousands of gallons of ineffective biological agents. After the failure of its biological program, it shifted its focus to chemical weapons production and conducted a number of attacks using chemical agents such as hydrogen cyanide gas, phosgene and VX and sarin nerve agents.

Jihadists have also demonstrated an interest in chemical weapons. The investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing found that bombmaker Abdul Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef) had added sodium cyanide to the large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated in the Trade Center's basement parking garage. The cyanide was either consumed or so widely scattered by the huge blast that its effects were not noticed at the time of the attack. The presence of the cyanide was only uncovered after investigators found a list of the chemicals ordered by conspirator Nidal Ayyad and debriefed Basit after his arrest.

In his testimony at his 2001 trial for the Millennium Bomb plot, Ahmed Ressam described training he had received at al Qaeda's Deronta facility in Afghanistan for building a hydrogen cyanide device. Ressam said members of the group had practiced their skills, using the gas to kill a dog that was confined in a small box.

Videos found by U.S. troops after the invasion of Afghanistan supported Ressam's testimony -- as did confiscated al Qaeda training manuals that contained recipes for biological toxins and chemical agents, including hydrogen cyanide gas. The documents recovered in Afghanistan prompted the CIA to publish a report on al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons program that created a lot of chatter in late 2004.

There have been other examples as well. In February 2002, Italian authorities arrested several Moroccan men who were found with about 4 kilograms (9 pounds) of potassium ferrocyanide and allegedly were planning to attack the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

In June 2006, Time magazine broke the story of an alleged al Qaeda plot to attack subways in the United States using improvised devices designed to generate hydrogen cyanide gas. The plot was reportedly aborted because the al Qaeda leadership feared it would be ineffective.

In 2007, jihadist militants deployed a series of large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices augmented with chlorine gas against targets in Iraq. However, the explosives in these attacks inflicted far more casualties than the gas. This caused the militants to deem the addition of chlorine to the devices as not worth the effort, and the Iraqi jihadists abandoned their chemical warfare experiment in favor of employing vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices without a chemical kicker.

There have also been several credible reports in Iraq of militants using chemical artillery rounds in improvised explosive device attacks against coalition forces, but those attacks also appear to have been largely ineffective.

Difficult to Employ

Using chemical munitions on the battlefield presents a number of challenges. The first of these is sufficiently concentrating the chemical agent to affect the targeted troops. In order to achieve heavy concentrations of the agent, chemical weapon attacks were usually delivered by a massive artillery bombardment using chemical weapons shells. Soviet military chemical weapons doctrine relied heavily on weapons systems such as batteries of BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, which can be used to deliver a massive amount of ordnance to a targeted area. Additionally, it is very difficult to control the gas cloud created by the massive barrage. There were instances in World War I and in the Iran-Iraq War in which troops were affected by chemical weapon clouds that had been created by their own artillery but had blown back upon them.

Delivering a lethal dose is also a problem in employing chemical weapons in terrorist attacks, as seen by the attacks outlined above. For example, in the March 20, 1995, attack on the Tokyo subway system, Aum Shinrikyo members punctured 11 plastic bags filled with sarin on five different subway trains. Despite the typically very heavy crowds on the trains and in the Tokyo subway stations that morning, the attacks resulted in only 12 deaths -- although thousands of other commuters were sickened by the attack, some severely.

The Syrian regime is thought to have mustard gas as well as tabun, sarin and VX nerve agents in its chemical weapons inventory. Mustard gas, a blistering agent, is the least dangerous of these compounds. In World War I, less than 5 percent of the troops who were exposed to mustard gas died. Tabun and sarin tend to be deployed in a volatile liquid form that evaporates to form a gas. Once in gas form, these agents tend to dissipate somewhat quickly. VX, on the other hand, a viscous nerve agent, was developed to persist in an area after it is delivered in order to prevent an enemy force from massing in or passing through that area. While VX is more persistent, it is more difficult to cause a mass casualty attack with it since droplets of the liquid agent must come into contact with the victim, unlike other agents that evaporate to form a large cloud.

But there are other difficulties besides delivering a lethal dose. Because of improvements in security measures and intelligence programs since 9/11, it has proved very difficult for jihadists to conduct attacks in the West, even when their attack plans have included using locally manufactured explosives. There have been numerous cases in which plots have either failed, like the May 2010 Times Square attack involving Faisal Shahzad, or been detected and thwarted, like the September 2009 plot to attack the New York subway system involving Najibullah Zazi.

Because of the improved security, it would be very difficult for jihadists to smuggle chemical agents into the United States or Europe, even if they were able to obtain them. Indeed, as mentioned above, the chemical artillery rounds used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq were employed in that country, not smuggled out of the region.

This means that jihadists not only face the tactical problem of effectively employing the agent in an attack but also the logistical problem of transporting it to the West. This difficulty of transport will increase further as awareness of the threat increases. One way around the logistical problem would be to use the agent against a soft target in the region. Such targets could include hotels, tourist sites, airport arrival lounges or even Western airliners departing from airports with less than optimal security.

Another option for jihadists or Palestinian militants could be to attempt to smuggle the chemical agent into Israel for use in an attack. However, in recent years, increased security measures following past suicide bombing attacks in Israel have caused problems for militant groups smuggling weapons into Israel. The same problems would apply to chemical agents -- especially since border security has already been stepped up again due to the increased flow of weapons from Libya to Gaza.

Militants could attempt to solve this logistical challenge by launching a warhead or a barrage of warheads into Israel using rockets, but such militant rocket fire tends to be very inaccurate and, like conventional rocket warheads, these chemical warheads would be unlikely to hit any target of value. Even if a rocket landed in a populated area, it would be unlikely to produce many casualties due to the problem of creating a lethal concentration of the agent -- although it would certainly cause a mass panic.

The use of chemical weapons would also undoubtedly spur Israel to retaliate heavily in order to deter additional attacks. This threat of massive retaliation has kept Syria from using chemical weapons against Israel or allowing its militant proxies to use them.

Hezbollah may be the militant organization in the region that could most effectively utilize Syrian chemical munitions. The group possesses a large inventory of artillery rockets, which could be used to deliver the type of barrage attack required for a successful chemical weapon attack. Rumors have been swirling around the region for many months that Libyan rebels sold some chemical munitions to Hezbollah and Hamas. While we have seen confirmed reports that man-portable air-defense systems and other Libyan weapons are being smuggled into Sinai en route to Gaza, there has been no confirmation that chemical rounds are being smuggled out of Libya.

Still, even if Hezbollah were to receive a stockpile of chemical munitions from Syria or Libya, it has a great deal to lose by employing such munitions. First, it would have to face the aforementioned massive retaliation from Israel. While Israel was somewhat constrained in its attacks on Hezbollah's leadership and infrastructure in the August 2006 war, it is unlikely to be nearly as constrained in responding to a chemical weapon attack on its armed forces or a population center. Because of the way chemical weapons are viewed, the Israelis would be seen internationally as having just cause for massive retaliation. Second, Hezbollah would face severe international repercussions over any such attack. As an organization, Hezbollah has been working for many years to establish itself as a legitimate political party in Lebanon and avoid being labeled as a terrorist organization in Europe and elsewhere. A chemical weapon attack would bring heavy international condemnation and would not be in the group's best interest at this time.

So, while securing Syrian chemical munitions is an imperative, there are tactical and practical constraints that will prevent militants from creating the type of nightmare scenario discussed in the media, even if some chemical weapons fell into the wrong hands.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/specter-syrian-chemical-weapons?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120802&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=9b4bb86066ae4528939bac40120b4bb4

There is no Civil war in Syria.

As usual it is outside interference from the west.



The outcome will be very interesting.