Western intelligence agencies observed Syrian units making advanced preparations for the potential use of chemical weapons, including loading trucks with ready-to-use bombs and shells, prompting President Obama last week to warn Syria against using the banned munitions, according to Western and Middle Eastern officials.
Soldiers at one Syrian base were monitored mixing precursors for chemical weapons and taking other steps to ready the lethal munitions for battlefield use, the officials said. It was the first hard evidence that Syria was moving toward possible activation of its vast arsenal of chemical weapons, which includes nerve gas and other poisons.
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Timeline: Major events in the country’s tumultuous uprising that began in March 2011.
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Interactive: A collection of videos from Syria, posted on YouTube.
Surveillance photos confirmed that at least one army unit began loading special military vehicles that transport bombs and artillery shells carrying chemical warheads, according to the officials. The moves followed specific orders to elite troops to begin preparations for the use of the weapons against advancing rebel fighters, the officials said.
Two Western officials briefed on the intelligence findings said that the Syrian government forces stopped the preparations late last week and that there was no evidence that activated chemical weapons were loaded onto aircraft or deployed to the battlefront.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence. The Obama administration and the CIA declined to answer questions about the episode. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said this week that the threat had eased, though it had not been eliminated.
Intelligence analysts said the orders to prepare the weapons were issued about two weeks ago. They said it was not clear whether the decision came from senior Syrian leaders, possibly including President Bashar al-Assad, or from a field commander acting on his own, the officials said.
Since concerns surfaced in the summer that Syria was moving chemical weapons among several sites across the country, officials in Damascus have repeatedly pledged not to use the banned munitions. After the warnings last week from Obama and other foreign leaders, the Syrian Foreign Ministry repeated that it would not use chemical weapons against the rebel forces.
Still, the discovery that steps had been taken to activate weapons at at least one military base alarmed intelligence officials, because of fears that a single commander could unleash the deadly poisons without orders from higher up the chain of command.
Danger persists
The latest disclosures, which provide more detail about the weapons threat than was previously known, came amid reports that Syrian troops have launched short-range, Scud-type missiles against rebel positions in recent days in an escalation of the nearly 21-month-old conflict. Several types of surface-to-surface missiles in Syria’s arsenal are capable of carrying chemical-weapons warheads. There have been no reports that the missiles launched contained chemical weapons.
Syria is known to possess one of the world’s largest arsenals of chemical weapons, including stocks of the highly lethal nerve agents sarin and VX. The chemicals can be loaded into artillery shells, aerial bombs or missile warheads for use against troop positions or civilian targets.
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