by Ariadna Theokopoulos
Friday, December 7th, 2012
December 07, 2012 “UPI” – Some 400 U.S. and Dutch NATO troops were massed on Turkey’s Syrian border Friday amid fears besieged President Bashar Assad was poised to use chemical weapons.
The soldiers were beefing up Turkey’s border and readying Patriot missiles three days after NATO agreed to deploy the MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system in Turkey. Ankara had requested the installations as a defense against a Syrian missile attack, possibly with chemical weapons.
“Nobody knows what such a regime is capable of and that is why we are acting protectively here,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said of NATO’s move.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday the latest intelligence reports heightened fears Assad would use chemical weapons on the rebels trying to oust him.
“The intelligence that we have raises serious concerns that this is being considered,” he said.
Over four decades, Syria has amassed one of the largest undeclared stockpiles of chemicals in the world, including huge supplies of mustard gas, sarin nerve agent and cyanide, the CIA says.
Syria denounced the NATO action and the U.S. and German statements.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad told pro-Assad Lebanese satellite TV station al-Manar, affiliated with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah: “Syria stresses again, for the 10th, the 100th time, that if we had such [chemical] weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide.”
Miqdad accused the United States and pro-opposition European countries of “conspiring” to create the impression the Assad regime would use chemical weapons to justify an intervention.
The high-stakes actions came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a surprise meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.N.-Arab League special envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi to broker a deal that would lead to Assad’s ouster and a transitional government’s installation.
The U.S. State Department said the 40-minute meeting, which Brahimi called, was a “constructive discussion focused on how to support a political transition in practical terms.”
Brahimi said afterward his goal was to “put together a peace process” that would build on a political transition strategy Washington and Moscow worked out in Geneva in June. That strategy quickly came undone over enforcement issues, officials said at the time.
“We haven’t taken any sensational decisions,” Brahimi said. He called Syria’s situation “very, very, very bad.”
Clinton told reporters before the meeting, “We have been trying hard to work with Russia to try to stop the bloodshed in Syria and start a political transition for a post-Assad Syrian future.”
She added, “Events on the ground in Syria are accelerating, and we see that in many different ways.”
The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said at least 89 people were killed in Syria Thursday. It said Syrian troops shelled at least 248 points, with 13 points shelled by warplanes, mostly in the Damascus suburbs.
Two points were hit with cluster bombs and four with barrel bombs, the group said.
Cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched and release or eject smaller sub-munitions, or explosive “bomblets.” Barrel bombs are large oil drums packed with TNT, oil and chunks of steel and dropped from helicopters. These improvised weapons are intended to cause maximum death and destruction, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported.
___________________________
U P D A T E
From RT:
The USS Eisenhower, an American aircraft carrier that holds eight fighter bomber squadrons and 8,000 men, arrived at the Syrian coast yesterday in the midst of a heavy storm, indicating US preparation for a potential ground intervention.
While the Obama administration has not announced any sort of American-led military intervention in the war-torn country, the US is now ready to launch such action “within days” if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decides to use chemical weapons against the opposition, the Times reports.
Some have suggested that the Assad regime may use chemical weapons against the opposition fighters in the coming days or weeks.
The arrival of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the 11 US Navy aircraft carriers that has the capacity to hold thousands of men, is now stationed at the coast of Syria, DEBKAfile reports. The aircraft carrier joined the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which holds about 2,500 Marines.
“We have (US) special operations forces at the right posture, they don’t have to be sent,” an unnamed US official told The Australian, which suggested that US military troops are already near Syria and ready to intervene in the conflict, if necessary.
If the US decides to intervene militarily in Syria, it now has at its disposal 10,000 fighting men, 17 warships, 70 fighter-bombers, 10 destroyers and frigates and a guided military cruises. Some of the vessels are also equipped with Aegis missile interceptors to shoot down any missiles Syria might have at hand, according to DEBKAfile.
“The muscle is already there to be flexed,” a US official told the London Times about the US military’s presence outside of Syria. “It’s premature to say what could happen if a decision is made to intervene. That hasn’t taken shape, we’ve not reached that kind of decision. There are a lot of options, but it [military action] could be launched rapidly, within days.”
The move comes after NATO made a significant strategic decision Tuesday to deploy Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems in Turkey on the border of Syria where opposition groups have the stronghold. The defense would be able to protect Turkey from potential Syrian missiles that could contain chemical weapons, as well as intimidate Syrian Air Force pilots from bombing the northern Syria border towns, which the armed rebels control. Syria is thought to have about 700 missiles.
“The protection from NATO will be three dimensional; one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-range Terminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last is the AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outside the atmosphere,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
DEBKAfile’s anonymous military sources claim the THAD and Aegis arrived at the Syrian coast aboard the USS Eisenhower.
“The United States now stands ready for direct military intervention in the Syrian conflict when the weather permits,” the news source wrote.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment