The Arab Network for the Study of Democracy

Syria chemical attacks tip Obama’s hand on direct military aid

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: The United States has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces used chemical weapons against rebel fighters in Syria and President Barack Obama has decided to supply direct military assistance to the Syrian opposition, the White House said Thursday.

The new intelligence assessment, which followed Obama’s demand for conclusive proof that chemical weapons had been deployed, could put pressure on Washington to respond aggressively to the crossing of what Obama himself had called a “red line.”

With outgunned rebel forces desperate for weapons after suffering a series of setbacks on the battlefield, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the president had decided to provide “direct military support” to the opposition.

But Rhodes would not specify whether that will include lethal aid, such as weapons, which would mark a reversal of Obama’s resistance to arming the rebels. He said only that the military assistance would be different in “both scope and scale” to what had been authorized before, which included non-lethal equipment such as night-vision goggles and body armor.

After months of investigation, the White House finally laid out its conclusions on chemical weapons use by Assad’s forces, but stopped short of threatening specific actions in response to what Obama said would be a “game changer” for Washington’s handling of the conflict.

“Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” Rhodes told reporters.

“The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete.”

Earlier, a U.S. defense official said the United States would keep F-16 fighter jets and Patriot anti-missile weapons in Jordan – which borders Syria – after a joint military exercise ends this month.

The U.S. announcement came hours after the U.N. said Syrians were being killed at an average rate of 5,000 per month with civilians bearing the brunt of the attacks.

The U.N. human rights office said it had documented 92,901 killings in Syria between March 2011 and the end of April 2013.

But the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said it was impossible to provide an exact number, which could be far higher.

As political pressure mounted for the U.S. to act, Assad’s forces aided by Hezbollah turned their guns north, with fierce fighting near Aleppo and bombardments of the central city of Homs.

The push north follows the regime’s capture of the strategic town of Qusair last week, with the help of Hezbollah.

The arrival of the Shiite-majority fighters to help Assad combat the mainly Sunni rebellion has shifted momentum in the 26-month-old war.

Assad’s army appears to be massing some troops in its footholds in Aleppo province, particularly in Shiite areas such as the enclaves of Al-Nubul and Zahra.

Activists reported fighting in the area around Aleppo Thursday, especially near the airport. The government has also launched an offensive in Homs, the closest big city to its last victory in Qusair and one of the last major rebel strongholds in the country’s center.

In the capital, a mortar round slammed into an area near the runway at Damascus International Airport, briefly disrupting flights to and from the Syrian capital, officials said.

It was the first known attack to hit inside the airport, located south of the capital, and highlighted the difficulty Assad faces in maintaining security even in areas firmly under his control.

Highlighting the increasing sectarian character of the war, a congress of leading Sunni preachers issued a callto holy war Thursday against the Damascus government and Hezbollah.Alarmed by reversals for the mainly Sunni rebels in the past few weeks, Sunni religious authorities have stepped up rhetoric that could fuel a wider regional conflict and communal bloodshed in Syria and elsewhere.

Concluding a conference in Cairo at which more than 70 Sunni scholarly organizations were represented, a leading Egyptian preacher made a televised statement accusing the rebels’ enemies of waging “war on Islam.” He urged the faithful to send money and arms to Syria and pursue “all forms of jihad.”

Among those present was Youssef al-Qaradawi, a renowned Qatari-based Egyptian preacher close to Cairo’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood, but the statement did not explicitly repeat a call by him two weeks ago for Sunnis to go and fight in Syria.

The number and prominence of those represented, however, made this a significant reinforcement of sectarian rhetoric. “Jihad is necessary for the victory of our brothers in Syria – jihad with mind, money, weapons; all forms of jihad,” said preacher Mohammad Hasan, reading from the statement.