WarSclerotic

Israelis Flock to Gas Mask Distribution Stations – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Gas masks in Israeli school drill (file)

Israel news photo: Flash 90

As tensions in Syria rise to unprecedented heights, Israelis, fearful of a possible chemical attack by its northern neighbor, have been flocking to gas mask distribution stations. Distribution of updated masks and chemical protection kits have been going on for several years, but on Sunday hordes of Israelis who have neglected to get their updated kits flocked to post offices, which are responsible for the distribution.

According to the Israel Post Office, requests for kits were quadruple those of a regular Sunday.

Israelis have also been cleaning out safe rooms and neighborhood bomb shelters, most of which serve older neighborhoods where houses were built without safe rooms. In many neighborhoods, the shelters have long been used for community activities, to run after-school programs, or as synagogues. In a recent campaign, the Homefront Security Ministry has been checking the status of shelters and found many of them to be wanting.

Israel, meanwhile, has called for international action to halt the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. Speaking Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel “expects this to end. The most dangerous regimes on earth must not have the most dangerous weapons on earth.”

Speaking with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius Sunday morning, President Shimon Peres said that “Syria has a ruler who kills people with no compunction, and in a horrible manner. No one can ignore the deaths of children. This is the time for an international effort to remove chemical weapons from Syria. We will not allow those weapons to remain there, not in the hands of Bashar al-Assad, or anyone else,” Peres said.

Syria: air attacks loom as Britain and US pledge to use force within two weeks – Middle East – World – The Independent.

Chemical weapons atrocity in Damascus marks a turning point  for Obama, Cameron and Hollande

Assad seen unlikely to hit at Israel if attacked | The Times of Israel.

Rebels vow they’ll gain control of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles

Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz looks across Israel’s border with Syria, in May. (photo credit: IDF Spokesperson)

Jerusalem does not believe the Assad regime would retaliate against Israel if it were hit by the United States in the wake of last Wednesday’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

A Syrian analyst, Bil’al Mekdad, warned on Syrian television Sunday that the United States “may be about to make a foolish mistake” and strike at Syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, which killed hundreds of civilians outside Damascus last week. If the regime were attacked, he said, it would hit back “directly” against Israel, because “it is the hand of Israel that steers America.”

Nonetheless, Israeli military sources indicated they did not consider that scenario likely, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported. “Israel’s estimation is that Assad would not retaliate against Israel,” the report said, stressing that Israel was taking various unspecified security precautions just in case.

Were Assad to strike at Israel, he would be unlikely to survive the forceful Israeli response, the report said, and this had been clarified to Assad.

Israeli media analysts noted that although some Syrian commentators have directly threatened Israel, no such threats had been made to date by senior government officials in Damascus.

Syrian rebel spokesmen on Sunday, meanwhile, vowed to gain control of Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles, saying they had only refrained from doing so thus far because of the desire to avoid “plunging the country into chaos.” After last Wednesday’s events, however, they said in a video announcement, there was no longer any reason to hold back.

Rebel forces were reported to be seeking to advance toward one such chemical weapons depot east of Aleppo, without much success as of Sunday night.

Israel has repeatedly expressed concern over Assad’s chemical weapons falling into even more dangerous hands than those of the Syrian president.

UN experts to hunt for chemical shell shrapnel – as West poised to strike Syria this week.

Chemical shell shrapnel

Six days after the event, a United Nations team of experts Monday, Aug. 26, start scouring a site in eastern Damascus for shrapnel left over from the poison gas shells or rockets fired by the Syrian army’s 155th Brigade last Wednesday.

Given the low prospects of finding evidence at this late date, debkafile’s sources report that the UN Secretariat and the White House in Washington agreed Sunday night that the only chance of the chemical weapons experts finding evidence of their use was to examine one of the targeted sites or injured victims. The Assad regime has only offered to open one site to the UN team, not grant them access to the approximately 2,000 victims under treatment at the three hospitals. Therefore, the inspectors’ best bet was to go for shell shrapnel first.

Even after the alleged Syrian army’s exhaustive cleanup operation after its poison chemical attack, the UN experts still hope to turn up overlooked fragments, however microscopic.

The US and UN also agreed that the experts would submit their initial findings as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday morning, Aug. 28. The Obama administration made clear that it was not prepared to hang around and wait for the results of more extensive tests. The assumption in Washington is that the initial UN findings would suffice as the starting signal for the US and its allies, Britain, France, Canada, Turkey, and Germany, to go forward and launch planned targeted strikes on Syria.

Notwithstanding the official statements coming out of Washington that President Barack Obama has still not decided on his military options against Syria’s chemical attack, debkafile’s sources confirm that limited, targeted Western military action is scheduled for the coming week.

The position of the Gulf emirates and Saudi Arabia is less cut and dried. Riyadh doesn’t want a targeted strike but an early all-out offensive for overthrowing the Assad regime once and for all.

This opens up the possibility of a separate Saudi-Qatari-UAE assault in Syria, coordinated with Washington, but conducted in different regions from those targeted by the US-led lineup.
The result is potentially the pursuit of a broad-based pan-Arab offensive on the Syrian regime, alongside a surgical Western strike.
As the moment of reckoning for his regime approaches, Bashar Assad said Monday, Aug. 26 in an interview with the Russian Izvestia that a US attack on his country would end in “failure.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was deeply concerned over possible US action in Syria.

Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented that what is happening in Syria simply demonstrates what will happen if Iran gets even deadlier weapons. He told the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel’s “finger is on the pulse” of the situation in Syria and – if need be – its finger would move to the trigger.

Arab media push for US intervention in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

Assad rejects chemical weapons allegations, warns US against attack | JPost | Israel News.

MOSCOW – Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed Western allegations that he used chemical weapons as politically motivated and warned Washington any US military intervention would fail in an interview published in a Russian newspaper on Monday.

“Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day,” he told the Izvestia daily when asked what would happen if Washington decided to strike or invade Syria.

Assad said Syrian government forces had been close to where rebel forces say chemical weapons were used last week during the country’s more than two-year-old civil war.

“Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic,” Assad told Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin newspaper.

Russia has been Assad’s most important international ally throughout the civil war, supplying his troops with arms and resisting pressure at the United Nations for tighter sanctions on Damascus.

Asked about the arms deliveries, Assad said: “I want to say that all contracts that have been concluded with Russia are being fulfilled.”

He gave no details and did not say whether Damascus had taken delivery of advanced S-300 sir defense systems from Russia which could vastly enhance its defense capabilities.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that it is very concerned that Washington may respond militarily to the suspected chemical weapons attack by Syria’s government.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged restraint when talking to his US counterpart, John Kerry, the ministry said on Monday.

“The minister (Lavrov) stressed that the official announcements from Washington in recent days about the readiness of US armed forces to ‘intervene’ in the Syrian conflict have been received in Moscow with deep concern,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to a conversation on Sunday.

The Times of London reported Monday that British Prime Minister David Cameron has allegedly been pressuring US President Barack Obama to launch a prompt military strike on Syria in response to the supposed chemical weapons attack.

British government sources said talks between Western leaders were ongoing and that any agreed upon military action could be exercised in the coming week.

US rebuffs Syrian access to chemical site as “too late to be credible”.

US seaborne Tomahawk cruise missile

The US has little doubt the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians and any decision to open the site to UN inspectors comes “too late to be credible,” a senior US official said Sunday, Aug. 25.
The official made clear the Syrian government’s agreement to let United Nations inspectors visit the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack was inadequate.

“At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime’s persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days,” the official said.

“If the Syrian government had nothing to hide and wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in this incident, it would have ceased its attacks on the area and granted immediate access to the UN five days ago,” the senior Obama administration official said.
The White House appeared not to be deterred from military intervention by an effort by Damascus to ease tensions by allowing UN inspectors to finally visit the areas allegedly hit with chemical weapons.
Middle East tensions were further ratcheted up during the day by a warning from Tehran. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces said Sunday: “America knows the limitation of the red line of the Syrian front and any crossing of Syria’s red line will have severe consequences for the White House.”  Iranian and Syrian spokesmen have said that a US attack on Syria would prompt a Syrian missile attack on Israel in retaliation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also issued a statement late Sunday saying: “We again resolutely urge all those who are trying to force conclusions on the UN experts and who say that armed action against Syria is possible, to show common sense and avoid tragic mistakes.”
debkafile reported early Sunday morning:

Western and Middle East powers led by Washington began moving Saturday night and Sunday morning, Aug. 25, toward a first strike against Syria following the Assad regime’s large-scale chemical attack in eastern Damascus last Wednesday. The first targeted strike may well signal the start of a series of US-led attacks aimed at toppling the Assad regime, debkafile’s military sources report. They may consist of imposing a no-fly zone and the sealing off of sectors in northern and southern Syria against government forces.

Russian forces also went on war alert
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.

Military commanders from Western and Muslim countries are meeting Sunday in the Jordanian capital of Amman to coordinate action in Syria, with the participation of the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff chairs the meeting. Saturday night, four American destroyers were moving closer to Syria, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of precision strikes.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
Saturday night, Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi, while denying his government was responsible for Wednesday’s poison gas attack, stated over state television that if Syria came under attack, “a mass of flames will ignite the Middle East.”
debkafile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.

Three Syrian hospitals told the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières Saturday that they had received around 3,600 patients suffering from symptoms related to a poison gas attack. Of these, 355 had reportedly died.
According to debkafile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.

Russia urges calm, but US says Syria chemical probe too late | The Times of Israel.

Moscow calls on West to await results of UN inspection of alleged gas attack site before military action, even as capitals say mounting evidence Assad regime to blame

By AP and Times of Israel staff August 26, 2013, 12:50 am

Bodies being buried after the chemical attack in Damascus last week. (photo credit: AP/Shaam News Network)

The US believes the Syrian regime’s allowing of a UN chemical weapons inspection team to probe the site of an alleged attack is too little too late, even as Moscow has urged Washington and its allies to await the team’s findings before launching military action.

Moscow welcomed Syria’s decision to allow international experts to examine the area in a Damascus suburb where at least 100 people died in the suspected attack last week. Syrian and UN officials are working to finalize the timing of the visit.

However, a senior US official said the White House believes the Syrian government had denied the UN investigative team immediate access to the site in order to give the evidence of the attack time to degrade.

The official said the regime’s continuing shelling of the site also further corrupts any available evidence of the attack.

The Obama administration official said a belated decision to grant access to the UN team would be considered “too late to be credible.”

“At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime’s persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days,” the official told the Reuters news agency.

Washington and a number of Western European countries appear to be moving toward a decision to launch military action against the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

On Sunday, a rebel official said opposition forces had received word that a coalition of Western states had made the decision to strike, according to Israel Radio.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker called Sunday for the US to respond in a “surgical and proportional way, something that gets their attention.” The Tennessee lawmaker said conversations with administration officials led him to believe US president Barack Obama would approach Congress for authorization to launch a strike after the summer recess next month.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said however that all countries should wait for the results of the investigation and he encouraged other countries to “show prudence and avoid tragic mistakes” by rushing to a conclusion about the incident.

“Our American and European partners must understand what catastrophic consequences this kind of politics would have for the region, for the Arab and Islamic world as a whole,” Lukashevich said, advising the US and its allies against taking a “gamble” and using unilateral force in Syria.

Opposition figures say an early morning attack on Wednesday released chemical agents into neighborhoods east of Damascus, killing hundreds. Some rebel groups put the death toll at over 1,000 while Doctors Without Borders said Saturday that 355 people were killed and over 3,000 injured. The regime has denied carrying out the attack.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle spoke with UN disarmament chief Angela Kane about the agreement between the UN and Syria to allow experts to visit the site.

“This is an important agreement in a dramatic situation,” Westerwelle said in a statement. “I welcome that the examination will begin without delay.”

On Sunday, France and the US both said evidence suggested chemical weapons were used. Obama met with his national security team Saturday to assess the intelligence and consider a US military response, with US warships sent into the eastern Mediterranean.

Before the announcement of the UN-Syria agreement, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande discussed the situation in a telephone call Sunday morning.

“They agreed that a chemical weapons attack against the Syrian people on the scale that was emerging demanded a firm response from the international community,” a British government spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to identify himself publicly. “This crime must not be swept under the carpet.”

In Paris, Hollande said a “body of evidence” suggests that chemical weapons were used during attacks on a Damascus suburb that killed hundreds, and that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was most likely behind it. In a statement from his office, Hollande said “everything” leads France to believe the regime was behind the attack.

At the same time a White House official said there was “very little doubt” that chemical weapons had been used, with Washington basing its assessment on “the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured” and witness accounts.

Francois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think tank, said that Syrian authorities “may have actually come to believe that there is a risk of some American strike” — and thus agreed to let the inspectors visit the suspected site.

“Whether [Syrian authorities] came to that view on their own, or whether the Russians told them to become a bit more careful, I don’t know, but it certainly looks as if they were actually starting to take the Americans seriously,” he added. “I think the Syrians are getting scared.”

Even without Western military action, rebels forces are already enjoying increased support in the wake of the chemical attack, with reports of 400 tons of Gulf-financed arms being sent from Turkey to northern based opposition fighters over the past day, Reuters reported.

The shipment would be one of the biggest arms transfers to the rebels in the two-and-a-half year-old civil war, which has claimed the lives of over 100,000 people and made over 7 million people into refugees.