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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Fri Apr 26, 2013, 05:32 AM Apr 2013

'Growing evidence' of chemical weapons use in Syria - UK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22305444

There is "limited but growing" evidence that Syrian government troops have used chemical weapons, UK Prime Minister David Cameron says.

"It is extremely serious, this is a war crime," Mr Cameron told the BBC.

On Thursday, the White House said that US intelligence agencies believed "with varying degrees of confidence" that Syria had used the nerve agent sarin.

It said the gas had been deployed on a "small scale", but did not give details of where or when it had been used.
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'Growing evidence' of chemical weapons use in Syria - UK (Original Post) xchrom Apr 2013 OP
John Kerry says Assad's Syria regime HAS used sarin chemical weapons against rebels xchrom Apr 2013 #1

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
1. John Kerry says Assad's Syria regime HAS used sarin chemical weapons against rebels
Fri Apr 26, 2013, 06:07 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/john-kerry-says-assads-syria-regime-has-used-sarin-chemical-weapons-against-rebels--despite-barack-obama-insisting-that-was-a-red-line-for-us-8588774.html

John Kerry says Assad's Syria regime HAS used sarin chemical weapons against rebels - despite Barack Obama insisting that was a 'red line' for US



John Kerry has said that chemical weapons have been used by the Assad regime against rebel forces in Syria, breaching what President Barack Obama has previously described as a “red line” for America.

The US Secretary of State’s assessment followed a letter sent by Chuck Hagel, America’s new Defence Secretary, to Republican Senator John McCain in which Mr Hagel said that with “some degree of varying confidence” the White House had determined that chemical weapons – and specifically Sarin gas – had been deployed.

The letter represents a change of stance from Mr Hagel, who on Tuesday rejected claims by Israel’s head of military intelligence, Itai Brun, that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons on several occasions. Mr Hagel was writing to Mr McCain and another Senator, Democrat Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, who had requested information about Mr Hagel’s earlier comments. Mr Hagel told reporters in Abu Dhabi last night that “any use of chemical weapons in Syria very likely originated” from the Syrian government. His words will heap further pressure on the West to intervene in the two-year-old civil war, which has already cost 70,000 lives and displaced more than a million people. Other than the provision of non-lethal equipment, Nato countries have not heeded calls inside Syria to prevent further bloodshed with military action.

The pressure will be most acute for Mr Obama, who last August said that the discovery of chemical weapons use by the Syrian military would be a “game-changer” for the US. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is [when] we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilised,” he said. “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
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