Homemade Sarin Was Used In Attack Near Damascus – Lavrov
By RT
September 26, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Russia has enough evidence to assert that homemade sarin was used on August 21 in a chemical attack near Damascus, the same type but in higher concentration than in an Aleppo incident earlier this year, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said.
“On the occasion of the incident in the vicinity of Aleppo on March 19, 2013 when the United Nations, under the pressure of some Security Council members, didn’t respond to the request of the Syrian government to send inspectors to investigate, Russia, at the request of the Syrian government, investigated that case, and this report, i.e. the results of this investigation are broadly available to the Security Council and publicly,” Lavrov said.
“The main conclusion is that the type of sarin used in that incident was homemade. We also have evidence to assert that the type of sarin used on August 21 was the same, only of higher concentration.”
The minister said he had recently presented his US counterpart John Kerry with the latest compilation of evidence, which was an analysis of publicly available information.
“The reports by the journalists who visited the sites, who talked to the combatants, combatants telling the journalists that they were given some unusual rockets and munitions by some foreign country and they didn’t know how to use them. You have also the evidence from the nuns serving in a monastery nearby who visited the site. You can read the evidence and the assessments by the chemical weapons experts who say that the images shown do not correspond to a real situation if chemical weapons were used. And we also know about an open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA and the Pentagon saying that the assertion that it was the government that used the chemical weapons was a fake.”
Lavrov emphasized that Russia stands fully committed to implementing the Geneva framework of September 14, a bilateral agreement with the United States to move forward with the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles under the Chemical Weapons Organization’s supervision.
The foreign minister, however, reminded that the agreement did not suggest adopting any UN resolution that mentions immediate UN Chapter 7 measures against Syria, or rather the potential for the use of military force.
“We set in that framework which we agreed in Geneva that we would be very serious about any violation of the obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, we would be very serious about any use of chemical weapons by anyone in Syria and that those issues would be brought to the Security Council under Chapter 7.”
UN resolution within two days?
The draft resolution to back Syria’s disarmament could be finalized “very soon,” possibly “within the next two days,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the AP.
Although the text of the resolution will include a reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, Gatilov stressed there will be “no automaticity in engaging” in military or non-military actions without a separate discussion at the UN Security Council.
The five permanent members of the Security Council have yet to agree on a final text of the resolution, though the group has indicated significant progress is being made.
Russian news agency Interfax rebutted earlier reports on Wednesday made by Western news agencies that claimed that a deal between the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain on wording of the draft resolution on destruction of chemical weapons in Syria had been reached.
“The alleged report claiming that five Security Council agreed on the main part of the resolution on Syria is not true. The Russian delegation was extremely surprised by the appearance of such information,” a source from the Russian delegation told Interfax.
#Russian UN delegation says reports that the #UNSC has agreed on a resolution are false. #Syria #UN @RT_America @RT_com
— Anastasia Churkina (@NastiaChurkina) September 25, 2013
“This is just their wishful thinking,” the spokesman for Russia’s UN delegation said. “It is not the reality. The work on the draft resolution is still going on,” quoted Reuters.
Earlier AFP and Reuters had reported that three Western diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity indicated that the permanent members of the Security Council had agreed on a new proposal.
“It seems that things are moving forward,” one source told Reuters, adding that there was “an agreement among the five on the core.” “We are closer on all the key points,” he said.
The envoys told AFP that the draft resolution would allow for sanctions under Chapter 7 of the UN charter to be considered if President Bashar al-Assad fails to keep to a Russia-US disarmament plan.
On Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UNGA US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a “constructive” meeting and agreed to continue pushing towards destruction of chemical weapons held by all sides in Syria under international supervision.
Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively to Vestnik KavkazaYesterday Azerbaijani Days organized by the Association of Azerbaijan and Israel (AzIs) and Hydar Aliyev Funs and the international fund of mountain Jews STMEGI opened in Israeli city of Kiryat Ekron.
25/09/2013 – “Azerbaijani Days in Israel is not the first and of course not the last step which we take to acquaint Israeli residents with the country of our origin, its history and culture and the difficult political situation in which Azerbaijan has found itself. The last is the most important because many citizens of Israel distort the situation and the essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – it is also due to the biased and one-sided methods of several powerful mass media of Israel. It determined our approach to holding Azerbaijani Days. We decided to combine cultural and educational programs within every event. Thus, acquaintance with Azerbaijani music, dances, literature is accompanied by exposition of the mobile exhibition “Justice for Khodzhaly” and lectures on the history of the Azerbaijani statehood, the Jewish community in Azerbaijan and the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Lev Spivak, Director General of AzIs, told Vestnik Kavkaza
Mayor of Kiryat Ekron Arje Hadad spoke at the opening ceremony of Azerbaijani Days. He didn’t hide that presented photos of the exhibition “Justice for Khodzhaly” were shocking to him: “Perhaps it would be right to speak about building bridges between our nations, how it is great that we celebrate Azerbaijani Days in our city. But after what I have seen, I want to speak about different things… We all think we are educated and informed people. We follow developments in Internet and are sure that we are well-informed. And then suddenly you realize that the history of the 20th century saw awful things, and you know nothing about them because somebody decided to hush them up. It is the most striking. It is impossible to watch the pictures and feel no pain and sympathy toward the victims of the outrage committed in Khodzhaly. We must know and remember what happened there. The world must know it!”
Azerbaijanis have always lived in peace and friendship with their Jewish neighbors; and mountain Jews of Azerbaijan had an opportunity to develop and preserve their unique culture, being devoted supporters of the Azerbaijani culture at the same time.
The speech by Satar Agarunov, a mountain Jew who was born in Cuba and now lives in Israel, confirmed this. He continues writing poems in the Azerbaijani language. One of the man motives of his poems is love for Azerbaijan, for its land and spiritual heritage.
Today there is a big group of writers and poets who are mountain Jews in Israel. They write in Azerbaijani. They are members of the Israeli branch of the Union of Writers of Azerbaijan and support contacts with the country of their origin. Some of them will be participants of the events planned for Azerbaijani Days.
Good evening —
I just addressed the nation about the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has turned into a brutal civil war in Syria. Over 100,000 people have been killed.
In that time, we have worked with friends and allies to provide humanitarian support for the Syrian people, to help the moderate opposition within Syria, and to shape a political settlement. But we have resisted calls for military action because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force.
The situation profoundly changed in the early hours of August 21, when more than 1,000 Syrians — including hundreds of children — were killed by chemical weapons launched by the Assad government.
What happened to those people — to those children — is not only a violation of international law — it’s also a danger to our security. Here’s why:
If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these deadly weapons erodes, other tyrants and authoritarian regimes will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gases and using them. Over time, our troops could face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. It could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons and use them to attack civilians. If fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten our allies in the region.
So after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike. The purpose of this strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime’s ability to use them, and make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use.
Though I possess the authority to order these strikes, in the absence of a direct threat to our security I believe that Congress should consider my decision to act. Our democracy is stronger when the President acts with the support of Congress — and when Americans stand together as one people.
Over the last few days, as this debate unfolds, we’ve already begun to see signs that the credible threat of U.S. military action may produce a diplomatic breakthrough. The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons and the Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons, and even said they’d join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use.
It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments. But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force.
That’s why I’ve asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path. I’m sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday, and I will continue my own discussions with President Putin. At the same time, we’ll work with two of our closest allies — France and the United Kingdom — to put forward a resolution at the U.N. Security Council requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons, and to ultimately destroy them under international control.
Meanwhile, I’ve ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad, and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails. And tonight, I give thanks again to our military and their families for their incredible strength and sacrifices.
As we continue this debate — in Washington, and across the country — I need your help to make sure that everyone understands the factors at play.
Please share this message with others to make sure they know where I stand, and how they can stay up to date on this situation. Anyone can find the latest information about the situation in Syria, including video of tonight’s address, here: issues/foreign-policy/syria
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
This email was sent to [email protected].
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“In April 2009, an Abu Dhabi newspaper carried the news that Qatar had proposed a gas pipeline from the Persian Gulf to Turkey. The Gulf sheikhdom had just finished an ambitious program to more than double its capacity to produce liquefied natural gas at the world’s biggest gas field and needed access to European markets, bypassing the troubled Persian Gulf where the threat of Iran hangs over the heads of the region’s medieval monarchs… But what Qatar and Turkey had not foreseen was the fact President Assad of Syria would have the gall to say ‘No’ to their moneymaking venture, instead inking deals with both Russia and Iran.”
September 11, 2013
To Bomb or Not to Bomb
Tarek Fatah
The Toronto Sun
While Russia and America try to outfox each other in the equivalent of a 21st century “Great Game,” Syria’s next-door neighbour Israel may end up being drawn into the conflict.
After all, the Syrian civil war has taken place very close to Israel’s northern borders and the prospect of Hezbollah getting its hands on Syrian chemical weapons cannot be ruled out, despite a number of Israeli air attacks on Syrian convoys that were suspected of transferring military equipment to southern Lebanon.
For the first time, Israel has deployed its Iron Dome anti-missile defence battery in the Jerusalem area. Last week, the IDF had moved Iron Dome batteries to various locations, including the Tel Aviv area, in response to the possibility of reprisals for an American attack against Syria.
The possibility of cruise missiles landing in Damascus triggered serious debate on Monday at the opening of the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism hosted by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, Israel.
Uzi Arad, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, told the conference he doubted if an attack on Syrian government forces by the U.S. would be successful.
Speaking to a packed audience, Arad surprised delegates from more than 50 countries when he criticized President Barack Obama, saying the American leader, by threatening Damascus, had bitten off more than he could chew. Arad, once an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu, suggested the best thing President Obama could do now was to extricate himself from the corner he had backed himself into with as much dignity as possible.
Twenty-four hours later, the American president seems to have received just such a chance to back out from his disastrous diplomatic debacle. This happened when the Russians called John Kerry’s bluff and obtained agreement from Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control.
At the summit, Uzi Arad not only dismissed the Obama-Kerry proposed response as a bad idea, he openly questioned its legality. He told the counter-terrorism summit, “Syria is not a signatory to international conventions against the use of chemical weapons,” making the legal basis for intervention somewhat shoddy. “You cannot say that Assad violated an international convention Syria is not signed on to.”
The annual summit attracted nearly 1,000 delegates from more than 50 countries ranging from India and Brazil to Canada and Australia. They included academics, intelligence officials, retired generals and police officials, and the one question on everyone’s mind, was this: “Why can’t America get its act together?”
Few were aware of the oil factor behind the Syrian civil war.
In April 2009, an Abu Dhabi newspaper carried the news that Qatar had proposed a gas pipeline from the Persian Gulf to Turkey. The Gulf sheikhdom had just finished an ambitious program to more than double its capacity to produce liquefied natural gas at the world’s biggest gas field and needed access to European markets, bypassing the troubled Persian Gulf where the threat of Iran hangs over the heads of the region’s medieval monarchs.
Following talks with the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, the then ruler of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani told the media, “We are eager to have a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey.” But what Qatar and Turkey had not foreseen was the fact President Assad of Syria would have the gall to say ‘No’ to their moneymaking venture, instead inking deals with both Russia and Iran.
As one counter-terrorism expert at the Herzliya summit said, “follow the money.”
The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus is arguably the most valued asset which the UK contributes to UK/US intelligence cooperation. The communications intercept agencies, GCHQ in the UK and NSA in the US, share all their intelligence reports (as do the CIA and MI6). Troodos is valued enormously by the NSA. It monitors all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East, ranging from Egypt and Eastern Libya right through to the Caucasus. Even almost all landline telephone communication in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage, picked up on Troodos.
Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.
It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.
On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad,according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.
But the inescapable question is this. Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation. The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers. How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it? The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways – not least nowadays the purely landline route.
Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children – has brought no condemnation at all from the West. Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign.
The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel.
U.S. to release information about Syria’s chemical weapons use
(CNN) — The Obama administration will release declassified intelligence Friday backing up a government assessment that the Syrian regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, a senior administration official said.
[U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response to the vote was more diplomatic.
The United States respects the results, he told journalists in Manila, the Philippines. “Every nation has a responsibility to make their own decisions.”
The United States will continue to consult with the British government and still hope for “international collaboration.”
“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” he said .]
This comes amid talk among major powers of a military response against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The administration has said that the information would be made public by the end of the week.
But diplomatic and political developments this week raised the chances of the United States going it alone in a military intervention.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria ended in deadlock, and in the U.S. Congress, doubts about military intervention are making the rounds.
And the United States’ closest ally, Great Britain, backed out of a possible coalition when its lawmakers voted down a proposal on military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important for the United Kingdom to have a “robust response to the use of chemical weapons, and there are a series of things that (Britain) will continue to do.”British involvement in a military action “won’t be happening,” he said.
But diplomacy is continuing. Speaking in televised comments aired Friday, Cameron said he expects to speak to President Obama over the “next day or so.”
On Friday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to consult with countries at the United Nations on developments in Syria and is scheduled to meet with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council at noon Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to speak about Syria at the State Department on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Iran: U.S. military action in Syria would spark ‘disaster’
Alone or together?
After the British vote, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that going it alone was a real prospect.
“We care what they think. We value the process. But we’re going to make the decision we need to make,” the official said.
Former President George W. Bush said Obama’s “got a tough choice to make.”
“I was not a fan of Mr. Assad. He’s an ally of Iran, he’s made mischief,” he told Fox News on Friday. “If he (Obama) decides to use the military, he’s got the greatest military in the world backing him up.”
In a statement released Friday, former President Jimmy Carter said “a punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war.”
A former director of the CIA says he believes Obama would face off with al-Assad alone.
“I can’t conceive he would back down from a very serious course of action,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
[…]
Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here?
The government of France supports military intervention, if evidence incriminates the government of using poison gas against civilians.
But on Friday, President Francois Hollande told French newspaper Le Monde that intervention should be limited and not include al-Assad’s overthrow.
Public opinion
Skeptics of military action have pointed at the decision to use force in Iraq, where the United States government under Bush marched to war based on a thin claim that former dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Opponents are conjuring up a possible repeat of that scenario in Syria, though the intelligence being gathered on the use of WMDs in Syria may be more sound.
Half of all Americans say they oppose possible U.S. military action against Syria, according to an NBC News survey released Friday.
Nearly eight in 10 of those questioned say Obama should be required to get congressional approval before launching any military attack against al-Assad’s forces
The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, indicates that 50% of the public says the United States should not take military action against Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, with 42% saying military action is appropriate.
But the survey suggests that if any military action is confined to air strikes using cruise missiles, support rises. Fifty percent of a smaller sample asked that question say they support such an attack, with 44% opposing a cruise missile attack meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks.
“Only 25% of the American people support military action in Syria,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
Convincing evidence
To shake off the specter of the Iraq war, the public needs convincing that chemical weapons were used and that al-Assad’s regime was behind it.
“You have to have almost incontrovertible proof,” Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
It’s there, said Arizona Sen. John McCain, and will be visible soon. He thinks that comparisons to Iraq are overblown and that doubts are unfounded.
“Come on. Does anybody really believe that those aren’t chemical weapons — those bodies of those children stacked up?” the Republican senator asked Morgan.
Al-Assad’s government has claimed that jihadists fighting with the opposition carried out the chemical weapons attacks on August 21 to turn global sentiments against it.
Read UK intelligence on chemical weapons
McCain doesn’t buy it.
“The rebels don’t have those weapons,” he said.
The president also needs to assure Congress that a possible intervention would not get out of hand, said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The action has to have a very limited purpose, and the purpose is to deter future use of chemical weapons,” he said.
Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by al-Assad
Haunted by Iraq
The parliamentarians in London shot down the proposal in spite of intelligence allegedly incriminating the Assad government.
Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee has concluded it was “highly likely” that Syrian government forces used poison gas outside Damascus last week in an attack that killed at least 350 people, according to a summary of the committee’s findings released Thursday.
A yes vote would not have sent the UK straight into a deployment.
Cameron had said his government would not act without first hearing from the U.N. inspectors and giving Parliament another chance to vote on military action. But his opposition seemed to be reminded of the Iraq war.
Opinion: For the U.S., Syria is a problem from hell
“I think today the House of Commons spoke for the British people who said they didn’t want a rush to war, and I was determined we learned the lessons of Iraq, and I’m glad we’ve made the prime minister see sense this evening,” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband told the Press Association.
The no vote came after a long day of debate, and it appeared to catch Cameron and his supporters by surprise.
For days, the prime minister has been sounding a call for action, lending support to talk of a U.S.- or Western-led strike against Syria.
“I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons,” the prime minister said.
“We will not be taking part in military action,” Cameron said Friday. “The British Parliament has spoken very, very clearly,” he said.
Though Cameron did not need parliamentary approval to commit to an intervention, he felt it important “to act as a democrat, to act a different way to previous prime ministers and properly consult Parliament,” he said Friday.
He regrets not being able to build a consensus of lawmakers, he said.
Letter from al-Assad
Before the vote, Syria’s government offered its own arguments against such an intervention. In an open letter to British lawmakers, the speaker of Syria’s parliament riffed on British literary hero William Shakespeare, saying: “If you bomb us, shall we not bleed?”
But the letter also invoked Iraq, a conflict justified on the grounds that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working toward a nuclear bomb — claims that were discovered to have been false after the 2003 invasion.
“Those who want to send others to fight will talk in the Commons of the casualties in the Syrian conflict. But before you rush over the cliffs of war, would it not be wise to pause? Remember the thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, both in the war and in the continuing chaos.”
British Commons Speaker John Bercow published the letter.
U.N. deadlock
Lack of support for military intervention at the United Nations on Thursday was less of a surprise.
Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, is one of Syria’s closest allies and is most certain to veto any resolution against al-Assad’s government that involves military action.
Moscow reiterated the stance Friday.
“Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which may contain an option for use of force,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday.
Map: U.S. and allied assets around Syria
A closed-door Security Council meeting called by Russia ended with no agreement on a resolution to address the growing crisis in Syria, a Western diplomat told CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh on condition of anonymity.
U.N. weapons inspectors are now in Syria trying to confirm the use of chemical weapons. The inspectors are expected to leave the country by Saturday morning.
They are to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, in turn, will swiftly brief the Security Council on the findings.
Congressional jitters
The president is facing doubts at home as well: More than 160 members of Congress, including 63 Democrats, have now signed letters calling for either a vote or at least a “full debate” before any U.S. action.
The author of one of those letters, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, said Obama should seek “an affirmative decision of Congress” before committing American forces.
More than 90 members of Congress, most of them Republican, signed another letter by GOP Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia. That letter urged Obama “to consult and receive authorization” before authorizing any such military action.
Congress is in recess until September 9.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was still weighing a potential response to the chemical weapons attacks.
The president has said that he is not considering a no-fly zone and has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.
Al-Assad has vowed to defend his country against any outside attack.
UK Government’s legal position on Syrian regime’s chemical weapon use
