|
| FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013, file citizen journalism image provided by the Media Office Of Douma City, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria. Humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said Saturday, Aug. 24, 2013, some 355 people showing "neurotoxic symptoms" died after a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs earlier this week. The group says three hospitals it supports had reported receiving about 3,600 patients with such symptoms in less than three hours that day |
DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- The Syrian government accused rebels of using chemical
weapons Saturday and warned the United States not to launch any military
action against Damascus over an alleged chemical attack last week,
saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze.
The
accusations by the regime of President Bashar Assad against opposition
forces came as an international aid group said it has tallied 355 deaths
from a purported chemical weapons attack on Wednesday in a suburb of
the Syrian capital known as Ghouta.
Syria is
intertwined in alliances with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and
Palestinian militant groups. The country also borders its longtime foe
and U.S. ally Israel, making the fallout from military action
unpredictable.
Violence in Syria has already
spilled over the past year to Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters have
joined the combat alongside Assad's forces.
Meanwhile,
U.S. naval units are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama
considers a military response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by
Assad's government.
U.S. defense officials
told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed
with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without
immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria. The officials spoke
on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss
ship movements publicly.
Obama emphasized that
a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the
international considerations that should precede a military strike.
After
Obama met with his national security team Saturday, the White House
said U.S. intelligence officials are still trying to determine whether
Assad's government unleashed the chemical weapons attack earlier this
week.
The White House statement said Obama
received a detailed review of the range of options he has requested for
the U.S. and the international community to respond if it is determined
that Assad has engaged in deadly chemical warfare.
Syria's
Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi dismissed the possibility of an
American attack, warning that such a move would risk triggering more
violence in the region.
"The basic
repercussion would be a ball of fire that would burn not only Syria but
the whole Middle East," al-Zoubi said in an interview with Lebanon-based
Al-Mayadeen TV. "An attack on Syria would be no easy trip."
In
Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Abbas Arakji, warned that an
American military intervention in Syria will "complicate matters."
"Sending
warships will not solve the problems but will worsen the situation,"
Arakji said in comments carried by Iran's Arabic-language TV Al-Alam. He
added that any such U.S. move does not have international backing and
that Iran "rejects military solutions."
In
France, Doctors Without Borders said three hospitals it supports in the
eastern Damascus region reported receiving roughly 3,600 patients with
"neurotoxic symptoms" over less than three hours on Wednesday morning,
when the attack in the eastern Ghouta area took place.
Of those, 355 died, the Paris-based group said.
The
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday that
its estimated death toll from the alleged chemical attack had reached
322, including 54 children, 82 women and dozens of fighters. It said the
dead included 16 people who have not been identified.
The
group said it raised its death toll from an earlier figure of 136,
which had been calculated before its activists in the stricken areas met
doctors, residents and saw medical reports. It said the dead "fell in
the massacre committed by the Syrian regime."
Death
tolls have varied wildly over the alleged attack, with Syrian
anti-government activists reporting between 322 and 1,300 killed.
Al-Zoubi
blamed the rebels for the chemical attacks in Ghouta, saying that the
Syrian government had proof of their responsibility but without giving
details. "The rockets were fired from their positions and fell on
civilians. They are responsible," he said.
With
the pressure increasing, Syria's state media accused rebels in the
contested district of Jobar near Damascus of using chemical weapons
against government troops Saturday.
State TV
broadcast images of plastic jugs, gas masks, vials of an unspecified
medication, explosives and other items that it said were seized from
rebel hideouts Saturday.
One barrel had "made
in Saudi Arabia" stamped on it. The TV report also showed medicines said
to be produced by a Qatari-German medical supplies company. Qatar and
Saudi Arabia are strong supporters of the Syrian rebels. The report
could not be immediately verified.
An army
statement issued late Saturday said the discovery of the weapons "is
clear evidence that these gangs are using chemical weapons against our
people and soldiers with help from foreign sides."
The
claims could muddy the debate about who was responsible for Wednesday's
alleged gas attack, which spurred demands for an independent
investigation and renewed talk of potential international military
action if chemical weapons were used.
Just
hours before the state media reports, the U.N. disarmament chief arrived
in Damascus to press Assad's regime to allow U.N. experts to
investigate the alleged Wednesday attack. The regime has denied
allegations it was responsible, calling them "absolutely baseless" and
suggesting they are an attempt to discredit the government.
The
U.S., Britain, France and Russia have urged the Assad regime and the
rebels fighting to overthrow him to cooperate with the United Nations
and allow a team of experts already in Syria to look into the latest
purported use of chemical agents. The U.N. secretary-general dispatched
Angela Kane, the high representative for disarmament affairs, to push
for a speedy investigation into Wednesday's purported attack. She did
not speak to reporters upon her arrival in Damascus Saturday.
The
state news agency said several government troops who took part in the
Jobar offensive experienced severe trouble breathing or even
"suffocation" after "armed terrorist groups used chemical weapons." It
was not clear what was meant by "suffocation," and the report mentioned
no fatalities among the troops.
"The Syrian
Army achieved major progress in the past days and for that reason, the
terrorist groups used chemical weapons as their last card," state TV
said. The government refers to rebels fighting to topple Assad as
"terrorists."
State TV also broadcast images
of a Syrian army officer, wearing a surgical mask, telling reporters
wearing similar masks that soldiers were subjected to poisonous attack
in Jobar. He spoke inside the depot where the alleged confiscated
products were placed.
"Our troops did not
suffer body wounds," the officer said. "I believe terrorist groups used
special substances that are poisonous in an attempt to affect this
advance."
Al-Mayadeen aired interviews with
two soldiers hospitalized for possible chemical weapons attack. The two
appeared unharmed but were undergoing tests.
"We
were advancing and heard an explosion that was not very strong," a
soldier said from his bed. "Then there was a strange smell, my eyes and
head ached and I struggled to breathe." The other soldier also said he
experienced trouble breathing after the explosion.
Al-Mayadeen
TV, which has a reporter embedded with the troops in the area, said
some 50 soldiers were rushed to Damascus hospitals for treatment and
that it was not yet known what type of gas the troops were subjected
too.
In Turkey, top Syrian rebel commander
Salim Idris told reporters that opposition forces did not use chemical
weapons on Saturday and that "the regime is lying."
For
days, the government has been trying to counter rebel allegations that
the regime used chemical weapons on civilians in rebel-held areas of
eastern Damascus, arguing that opposition fighters themselves were
responsible for that attack.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius dismissed the Syrian government's claims.
"All
the information we have is converging to indicate there was a chemical
massacre in Syria, near Damascus, and that Bashar Assad's regime was
behind it," Fabius told reporters during a visit to the West Bank city
of Ramallah. He did not elaborate.
France has suggested that force could be used against Syria if Assad's regime was proven to have used chemical arms.
The
new talk of potential military action in in the country has made an
independent investigation by U.N. inspectors critical to determine what
exactly transpired.
The U.N. experts already
in Syria are tasked with investigating three earlier purported chemical
attacks in the country: one in the village of Khan al-Assal outside the
northern city of Aleppo in March, as well as two other locations that
have been kept secret for security reasons.
It
took months of negotiations between the U.N. and Damascus before an
agreement was struck to allow the 20-member team into Syria to
investigate. Its mandate is limited to those three sites, however, and
it is only charged with determining whether chemical weapons were used,
not who used them.
Leaders of the main
Western-backed Syrian opposition group on Saturday vowed retaliation for
the alleged chemical weapons attack.
From
Istanbul, the head of the Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Al-Jarba,
also criticized the lack of response to the attack by the United Nations
and the international community, saying the UN was discrediting itself.
"It
does not reach the ethical and legal response that Syrians expect," he
said. "As a matter of fact we can describe it as a shame."
`
