The regime of embattled Syrian president Bashar Assad gassed rebel forces in the battleground city of Homs, anti-government activists told Al Jazeera on Sunday. If the unconfirmed report is true ' and that's a huge if ' the chemical attack could signal the biggest escalation yet of 20-month-old Syrian civil war, with serious implications for the rest of the world.
Danger Room first reported in early December that the Assad regime was preparing some of its nerve weapons for possible use against rebel forces. Washington and its allies have repeatedly said they would not tolerate such an attack. 'This would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned previously.
Even Sergei Lavrov ' foreign minister of Assad's ally, Russia ' called the use of chemical weapons 'political suicide.'
Al Jazeera reported that seven people died after inhaling a gas sprayed by government forces in a part of Homs held by the rebel Free Syrian Army. 'We don't know what this gas is but medics are saying it's something similar to sarin,' rebel Raji Rahmet Rabbou told the Qatar-based news organization.
The 'poisonous material' was deployed by government warplanes, Haaretz reported, citing a rebel statement. The Assad regime, meanwhile, is blaming the rebels for the attack.
Al Jazeera posted two videos it said were obtained from 'a field clinic in the city.' The graphic videos indeed appear to depict gasping victims of what could be a nerve agent attack. Again, however, the origins and contents of these videos have yet to be verified by other sources.
Sarin can cause paralysis, choking and even death. But the symptoms shown in these videos might have been caused by other chemicals ' possibly chlorine, phosgene, cyanogen chloride, according to one independent review of the clips (.pdf). Or we might simply be seeing a severe asthma attack.
The specter of chemical warfare has long loomed over the brutal Syrian conflict, which rebels claimed has killed no fewer than 37,000 people. As early as this summer Assad's regime warned it might deploy its 500-ton chemical stockpile. 'There was a moment we thought they were going to use it ' especially back in July,' a U.S. official told Danger Room. 'But we took a second look at the intelligence, and it was less urgent than we thought.'
The relief was short-lived. Assad began trying to expand his arsenal with fresh sarin precursor materials ' specifically, isopropanol and methylphosphonyl difluoride. U.S. and allied agents blocked at least some of the new acquisitions, but there was little they could do about the existing stockpile.
Nor could the international community easily prevent Syria from adding to its stocks of sarin delivery systems. Damascus already possessed chemical-capable gravity bombs and short-range rockets. This year the regime also rebuilt its reserves of Scud ballistic missiles, which can carry sarin warheads. Government troops fired explosive-tipped Scuds in combat this month.
With the escalation of the gas threat, Western governments began training some Syrian rebels in methods of securing chemical weapons. In addition, 'U.S. contractors have also been on the ground in Syria to monitor the status of regime stockpiles,' according to the Syria Deeply site.
Though Turkey and some of its NATO allies have deployed troops to the border with Syria, American officials have consistently questioned the feasibility of a Libya-style intervention in the Syrian conflict. But this reluctance includes a chemical-warfare caveat. 'The United States is not going to be able to sit it out if Syria starts using chemical weapons on its people,' an official told The New York Times.
Three weeks ago U.S. surveillance spotted special Syrian military units prepping sarin warheads for possible use. 'Physically, they've gotten to the point where the can load it up on a plane and drop it,' an official told Danger Room at the time. And now it's possible they've done so, with grisly results.
Earlier this month Clinton promised a U.S. response to any use of chemical weapons by Syria. 'We are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur,' she said, without specifying what form that response might take.
Now we could be about to find out.
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