Syrian rebels – praag.org

Russia gives UN 100-page report showing Syrian rebels used sarin

Russia says a deadly March sarin attack in an Aleppo suburb was carried out by Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, and it has delivered a 100-page report laying out its evidence to the United Nations.

A statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website late Wednesday said the report included detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians collected at the site of the alleged attack, Khan al Asal in northern Syria. The attack killed 26 people.

Probes from Khan al-Assal show chemicals used in the March 19 attack did not belong to standard Syrian army ammunition, and that the shell carrying the substance was similar to those made by a rebel fighter group, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

A statement released by the ministry on Wednesday particularly drew attention to the “massive stove-piping of various information aimed at placing the responsibility for the alleged chemical weapons use in Syria on Damascus, even though the results of the UN investigation have not yet been revealed.”

By such means “the way is being paved for military action” against Damascus, the ministry pointed out.

But the samples taken at the site of the March 19 attack and analyzed by Russian experts indicate that a projectile carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin was most likely fired at Khan al-Assal by the rebels, the ministry statement suggests, outlining the 100-page report handed over to the UN by Russia.

The key points of the report have been given as follows:

• the shell used in the incident “does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army and was crudely according to type and parameters of the rocket-propelled unguided missiles manufactured in the north of Syria by the so-called Bashair al-Nasr brigade”;

• RDX, which is also known as hexogen or cyclonite, was used as the bursting charge for the shell, and it is “not used in standard chemical munitions”;

• soil and shell samples contain “the non-industrially synthesized nerve agent sarin and diisopropylfluorophosphate,” which was “used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II.”

The findings of the report are “extremely specific,” as they mostly consist of scientific and technical data from probes’ analysis, the ministry stressed, adding that this data can “substantially aid” the UN investigation of the incident.

While focusing on the Khan al-Assal attack on March 19, in which at least 26 civilians and Syrian army soldiers were killed, and 86 more were injured, the Russian Foreign Ministry also criticized the “flawed selective approach” of certain states in reporting the recent incidents of alleged chemical weapons use in August.

The hype around the alleged attack on the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta showed “apparent attempts to cast a veil over the incidents of gas poisoning of Syrian army soldiers on August 22, 24 and 25,” the ministry said, adding that all the respective evidence was handed to the UN by Syria.

The condition of the soldiers who, according to Damascus, suffered poisoning after discovering tanks with traces of sarin, has been examined and documented by the UN inspectors, the ministry pointed out, adding that “any objective investigation of the August 21 incident in eastern Ghouta is impossible without the consideration of all these facts.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the UN investigators are set to return to Syria to investigate several other cases of alleged chemical weapons use, including the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said U.S. officials were unmoved by the Russian report and held the Assad government responsible for both the Khan al Asal attack in March and the Aug. 21 attack outside Damascus.

“We have studied the Russian report but have found no reason to change our assessment,” she said.

Richard Guthrie, formerly project leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the Russian statement on the makeup of the sarin found at Khan al Asal, which the Russians indicated was not military grade, might reflect only that “there are a lot of different ways to make sarin.”

He added: “The messy mix described by the Russians might also be the result of an old sarin stock being used. Sarin degrades (the molecules break up) over time and this would explain a dirty mix.”

Jean Pascal Zanders, a senior research fellow at the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies, said the mix might not have been World War II vintage.

“The Western Allies were not aware of the nerve agents until after the occupation of Germany,” he wrote in an email. “The USA, for example, struggled with the sarin (despite having some of the German scientists) until the 1950s, when the CW program expanded considerably.” – RT/McClatchy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/05/201269/russia-says-it-has-compiled-a.html#storylink=cpy

UK, US and allies will provide ‘urgent military support to Syrian rebels’

Substantial military support for opposition Syrian forces remains necessary, urged advocates Saturday during a meeting of the Friends of Syria group, a day after rebels disclosed receipt of advanced weapons they said could change the course of the war.

In the meantime, the BBC has reported that “Foreign ministers of the Friends of Syria group, who are meeting in Qatar, have agreed to provide urgent support to rebels who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad.”

The British broadcaster quoted Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani as saying that “providing arms may be the only means of achieving peace”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told a meeting of the 11-country grouping in the Qatari capital Doha that support for Syrian rebels was not aimed at ensuring a military victory for them, but to strengthen them at proposed peace talks with Damascus.

He added that the Friends of Syria believe the talks, expected to be in Geneva this summer, represents an opportunity to negotiate an end to Syria’s 27-month conflict.

Kerry accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of “internationalizing” the conflict by seeking assistance from Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.

“The United States and other countries here … will increase the scope and scale of assistance to the political and military opposition.”

Qatar, a staunch backer of the Syrian opposition, called on other countries represented in the Doha gathering to offer military aid to rebels fighting to oust al-Assad.

“Moral backing is not enough. We have to offer support to help Syrians face the regime troops,” said Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamd bin Jassim.

“A balance must be achieved on the ground so that the regime can accept negotiations.”

Al-Assad’s troops have, in recent weeks, regained several rebel-held areas, raising concerns among the opposition’s allies.

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) has said it would demand more sophisticated weapons at the Doha meeting.

“From our part, the meeting will highlight the importance of sending more weapons and ammunition to the revolutionaries to help them confront attacks by the Syrian regime and their Hezbollah allies,” Samir al-Nashar, a member of the Syrian opposition, told dpa.

Earlier this month, the US, citing the use of chemical weapons by the al-Assad regime, announced it would give arms directly to the opposition forces.

The European Union’s arms embargo on Syria is to be lifted, but not until August.

Russia, Syria’s key arms supplier, this week warned the West that arms to Syrian rebels could end up in extremists’ hands.

The Friends of Syria group comprises Britain, France, the US, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Jordanian military officials, meanwhile, confirmed Saturday that Amman and Washington have expanded a year-old training programme for Syrian rebels.

The programme, once restricted to the detection and securing of chemical weapons, has been broadened to include the use of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles – the very arms the rebels say are needed to turn the tide of the conflict.

Washington dispatched some 2,000 additional military trainers and advisors to Jordan last week, military officials said, to train 5,000 FSA commanders and officers over the next month.

“Due to changes on the battlefield, a decision has been made on both sides to train more fighters, faster before it is too late,” a Jordanian military officer involved in the training said on condition of anonymity.

Abu Mohammed al-Darawi, an FSA commander, who sent 100 of his 800-strong battalion to take part in the training in the eastern Jordanian desert, claims the revamped drills included, for the first time, the use of heavy artillery such as anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

“For the first time we are using the very weapons that can defend ourselves against the regime’s arsenal,” al-Darawi told dpa. In Syria, opposition activists said government forces Saturday intensified attacks on pro-rebel areas around the capital Damascus.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several buildings were damaged or gutted in a shelling attack by regime troops on the area of al-Qaboon north-east of Damascus.

The Observatory added that four government soldiers were killed when a shell landed in the district of al-Qadam south of Damascus.

At least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, according to the United Nations.Authors: Weedah Hamzah, Taylor Luck, Ramadan Al-Fatash – dpa

UK ‘very reluctant’ to arm Syrian rebels

William Hague, British Foreign Secretary

Britain said on Sunday it and other countries were “very reluctant” to arm rebels in Syria even as it warned that success on the battlefield by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad was undermining chances of a Geneva peace conference.

Britain and France worked together last month to lift a European Union embargo on arms shipments to Syrian rebels, giving them the flexibility to send weapons to forces who complain they are dramatically outgunned.

But Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that no such decision had yet been taken and promised for the first time to give MPs a vote in parliament if and when it was.

“There would be a vote one way or the other,” he told BBC TV, saying Britain and the world were faced with an agonising foreign policy and ethical dilemma.

“People have understandable concerns about the idea of sending arms to anybody in Syria and we’d all be very reluctant to do that,” he said.

“On the other hand, at the moment, people are being killed in huge numbers while the world denies them the right to defend themselves.”

Hague’s intervention comes as U.S.-Russian efforts to convene a peace conference in Geneva are faltering after the rebels lost control of the strategic border town of Qusair last week, weakening their negotiating hand.

One rebel commander has since been quoted as saying the opposition will boycott a peace conference unless it receives arms.

But Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is split on the issue with some ministers fearing such a move could worsen the bloodshed and drag Britain into a protracted conflict.

Hague said he was gloomy about the prospect of a Geneva peace conference.

“The regime has gained ground. That makes the Geneva conference harder to bring about and to make a success. It makes it less likely that the regime will make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations.

“They’re not coming together in the next couple of weeks. I find that worrying and depressing,” he added.

The United Nations estimates at least 80,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict.

U.N. humanitarian agencies launched a $5 billion (3.2 billion pounds) appeal on Friday, the biggest in their history, to cope with the fallout from the fighting that has sent some 1.6 million refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries. – Reuters

(Reporting By Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Heavens)