President Obama warned Syria on Monday that deploying chemical weapons is “totally unacceptable,” after what U.S. officials said were new intelligence reports that the Damascus government is preparing such munitions for possible use.
Obama told the government of President Bashar al-Assad that “there will be consequences, and you will be held accountable” if it used any part of its stockpile of chemical weapons, including sarin gas, the deadly nerve agent.
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The clash took place along a cease-fire line in the region, raising fears of a spillover from the Syrian war.
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The U.S. allegation is a new acknowledgment that the Syrian conflict has become a regional war.
A U.S. intelligence official said “we have pretty good visibility” into Syria’s depots, and a second U.S. official said intelligence gathered in recent days has raised alarms. The second official said it was unclear whether the Assad government planned to move beyond the preparation stage to deploying the weapons.
After months of dogged, siegelike fighting, rebel forces have begun to make significant advances in Syria, raising questions about Assad’s durability and desperation.
The Obama administration has resisted any direct intervention in the conflict, but hard evidence that Syria had weaponized its chemical stocks could trigger the use of U.S. troops to secure the materials. A senior American official, who like other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss contingency plans and intelligence, said some U.S. forces have begun to run drills so they are ready to seize chemical weapons in Syria if ordered.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the government planned no such escalation of the 20-month-old civil war. “Syria has stressed repeatedly that it will not use these types of weapons, if they were available, under any circumstances against its people,” the ministry said in a statement.
The White House had previously warned Syria about the use of chemical weapons, but Monday brought fresh statements from senior U.S. officials, beginning with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a visit to Prague.
“This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton said. “I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people.”
Heavy fighting continued Monday around Damascus as Assad’s forces tried to strike back against rebels who have gained control of some of the suburbs around the capital.
Citing the deteriorating security situation, the United Nations announced Monday that it is withdrawing “all nonessential international staff” from the country. Radhouane Nouicer, the U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said that up to a quarter of the about 100 international staffers working for U.N. agencies in Syria could leave by the end of the week and that remaining staff members would be restricted to Damascus.
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