The recriminations continue...
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| Source: Acus.org |
Syrian soldiers see chemical agents in rebel tunnels - state TV
Syrian
state television said troops found chemical agents in rebel tunnels in a
Damascus suburb on Saturday and some soldiers were "suffocating",
intensifying a dispute over blame for a reported nerve gas attack that
killed hundreds this week.
The top U.N. disarmament
official arrived in Damascus on Saturday to seek access for inspectors
to the site of the attack and the United States was realigning naval
forces in the region to give President Barack Obama the option for an
armed strike on Syria.
Syrian opposition accounts that between 500
and well over 1,000 civilians were killed by gas in munitions fired by
forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and video footage of victims'
bodies, have heightened calls in the West for a robust, U.S.-led
response after 2-1/2 years of international inaction on Syria's
conflict.
In a clear attempt to
strengthen the government's denials of responsibility for the suspected
chemical assault, Syrian state television said soldiers came across
chemical agents in rebel tunnels in the suburb of Jobar and some were
overcome by fumes.
"Army heroes are
entering the tunnels of the terrorists and saw chemical agents," it
quoted a "news source" as saying. "In some cases, soldiers are
suffocating while entering Jobar. Ambulances came to rescue the people
suffocating in Jobar."
An army unit was preparing to storm the insurgent-held suburb, the television added.
Syrian
opposition activists accuse Assad's forces of firing nerve gas
projectiles into Jobar and other rebellious suburbs before dawn on
Wednesday. Later in the week, activists crossed front lines around
Damascus to smuggle out tissue samples from victims of the attack.
The
Syrian government says it would never resort to chemical weapons
against Syrian citizens and in the past has accused rebels of doing so
for battlefield advantage, an allegation Western leaders have dismissed.
Assad's government has suggested rebels may have carried out the latest attack themselves to provoke foreign intervention.
Obama
has long been hesitant to intervene in Syria, wary of its position
straddling faultlines of wider sectarian conflict in the Middle East,
and he reiterated such reluctance on Friday.
INTELLIGENCE EVIDENCE
But,
in a development that could raise pressure on Obama to act, American
and European security sources said U.S. and allied intelligence agencies
had made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons were used by
pro-Assad forces this week.
Major world powers - including
Russia,
Assad's main ally which has long blocked U.N.-sponsored intervention
against him - have urged the Syrian leader to cooperate with a U.N.
inspection team that arrived on Sunday to pursue earlier allegations of
chemical weapons assaults in the civil war.
U.N.
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane arrived to
Damascus on Saturday to press for a Syrian government green light for
inspectors to examine areas of Damascus suburbs said to have been
targeted on Wednesday.
Assad's
government has not said whether it will give such access despite
increasing pressure from the United Nations, Western and Gulf Arab
countries and Russia. If confirmed, it would be the world's deadliest
chemical attack in decades.
Washington
said on Friday it was repositioning warships in the Mediterranean,
although officials cautioned that Obama had made no decision on any
military move. A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said the navy would expand its presence there to four
destroyers from three.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, en route to Asia, said Obama had asked the Pentagon for options on Syria.
"The
Defense Department has responsibility to provide the president with
options for all contingencies," Hagel said. "And that requires
positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out
different options - whatever options the president might choose." He did
not elaborate.
The defence
official said the USS Mahan, a destroyer armed with cruise missiles, had
finished its deployment and was due to head back to its home base in
Norfolk, Virginia. But, he said, the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet
has decided to keep the ship in the region.
Source:
Reuters
