Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order

 

The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said.

As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.

Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.

U.S. officials stressed that as of now, the sarin bombs hadn't been loaded onto planes and that Assad hadn't issued a final order to use them. But if he does, one of the officials said, "there's little the outside world can do to stop it."

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated U.S. warnings to Assad not to use chemical weapons, saying he would be crossing "a red line" if he did so.

 

Speaking Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clinton said the Syrian government was on the brink of collapse, raising the prospect that "an increasingly desperate Assad regime" might turn to chemical weapons or that the banned weapons could fall into other hands.

 

"Ultimately, what we should be thinking about is a political transition in Syria and one that should start as soon as possible," Clinton said. "We believe their fall is inevitable. It is just a question of how many people have to die before that occurs."

 

Aides told NBC News that Clinton was expected next week to officially recognize the main opposition movement, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, with which she is scheduled to meet in Morocco. Britain, France, Turkey and some key Arab leaders have already recognized the opposition.

 

Fighting intensified Wednesday in the 21-month civil war, which has left 40,000 people dead. The U.N. withdrew its personnel from Damascus, saying conditions were too dangerous.

 

The government said this week that it wouldn't use chemical weapons on its own people after President Barack Obama warned that doing so would be "totally unacceptable."

But U.S. officials said this week that the government had ordered its Chemical Weapons Corps to "be prepared," which Washington interpreted as a directive to begin bringing together the components needed to weaponize Syria's chemical stockpiles.

 

That process would involve mixing "precursor" chemicals for the deadly nerve gas sarin, which could be used in artillery shells, U.S. officials told NBC News, stressing that there was no evidence that process had as yet begun.

 

U.S. officials had long believed that the Syrian government was stockpiling the banned chemical weapons before it acknowledged possessing them this summer.

 

NBC News reported in July that U.S. intelligence agencies believed that in addition to sarin, Syria had access to tabun, a chemical nerve agent, as well as traditional chemical weapons like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide.

 

Officials told NBC News at the time that the Syrian government was moving the outlawed weapons around the country, leaving foreign intelligence agencies unsure where they might end up.

 

Syria is one of only seven nations that hasn't ratified the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the arms control agreement that outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.

 

Bombshells filled with chemicals can be carried by Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers, in particular Sukhoi-22/20, MiG-23 and Sukhoi-24 aircraft. In addition, some reports indicate that unguided short-range Frog-7 artillery rockets may be capable of carrying chemical payloads.

 

In terms of longer-range delivery systems, Syria has a few dozen SS-21 ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 72 miles; 200 Scud-Bs, with a maximum range of 180 miles; and 60 to 120 Scud-Cs, with a maximum range of 300 miles, all of which are mobile and are capable of carrying chemical weapons, according U.S. intelligence officials.

 

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/05/15706380-syria-loads-chemical-weapons-into-bombs-military-awaits-assads-order



PM: German Chancellor Merkel is a true friend of Israel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a true friend of Israel, said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu following a three-and-a-half hour long meeting, two hours longer than planned.

"From the conversation it is clear that Chancellor Merkel is a true friend of Israel whose commitment to Israel's security is genuine and unconditional. This was an open and comprehensive discussion on all the issues in the Middle East," Netanyahu said.

The two leaders first met privately, and were then joined by their close aides.

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=294789

The Dr. Of common sense E.T. Williams on Obama Thinks Gun Owners Are The Enemy!

NDAA 2013 still allows indefinite detention within the US

Turkey knows ‘where all Syria missiles located’

 

 

 

ANKARA — Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in remarks published Wednesday that Ankara knows the “exact location” of hundreds of ground missiles belonging to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

“Assad has about 700 missiles... Now we know the exact location of all of them, how they are stored and who holds them,” Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the Sabah newspaper.

The comments emerged the day after NATO ministers approved Turkey’s request for deployment of Patriot missiles along its volatile border with Syria, a move that has angered Damascus and its allies.

Davutoglu said the international community feared possible attacks from Damascus against countries such as Turkey which were pushing for the toppling of the regime, if it felt the end was near.

“We say to anyone who would want to attack Turkey — don’t even think about it,” NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in announcing the alliance’s decision on the Patriots, a US-made ground to air system.

The number of missile batteries and their precise location have yet to be decided and will be determined after a site survey in Turkey and consultations within NATO.

Syria reportedly has several types of ballistic missiles, including Russian-made Scuds.

Turkey requested the Patriots out of concern for “possible action by uncontrolled groups in Syria,” Davutoglu said without elaborating.

Turkey has said the missiles would be for “purely defensive purposes” after several cross-border shelling attacks from Syria, where the 21-month old conflict killed more than 41,000 people according to rights groups.

Turkey, a NATO member hostile to Assad and hosting thousands of refugees, says it needs the air defense batteries to shoot down any missiles that might be fired across its border. The German, Dutch and US troops would take weeks to deploy.

NATO ministers meeting in Brussels also unanimously expressed “grave concern” about US intelligence reports suggesting Syria might use chemical weapons as a last resort to protect Assad, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen and officials from a number of Western countries have warned this week that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would prompt an international response. Syria says it would never use chemical weapons on its own people.

Warplanes on Wednesday pounded suburbs of Damascus as regime forces fought to reclaim rebel-held areas of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based watchdog, which uses a countrywide network of activists and doctors to compile its tolls, said at least 123 people were killed on Tuesday, including some 30 in and around Damascus.

Damascus has now become the focus of clashes.

Gunmen loyal to opposite sides battled on Wednesday in the streets of a northern Lebanese city where two days of fighting killed at least five people and wounded 45, officials said.

The Lebanese army fanned out in the city of Tripoli to calm the fighting, with soldiers patrolling the streets in armored personnel carriers and manning checkpoints. Authorities closed major roads because of sniper fire.

The fighting comes at a time of deep uncertainty in Syria, with rebels closing in on President Bashar Assad’s seat of power in Damascus.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged Syria’s regime against using its stockpile of chemical weapons, warning of “huge consequences” if Assad resorts to such weapons of mass destruction.

“I again urge in the strongest possible terms that they must not consider using this kind of deadly weapons of mass destruction,” Ban told The Associated Press, speaking on the sidelines of a climate conference in Qatar.

Syria has been careful not to confirm that it has chemical weapons, but the regime insists it would never use them against the Syrian people.

Ban also suggested that he would not favor an asylum deal for the Syrian leader as a way to end the country’s civil war and cautioned that the United Nations doesn’t allow anyone “impunity.” Assad has vowed to “live and die” in Syria, but as the violence grinds on there is speculation that he might seek asylum. — Agencies

 

 

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20121206145140

Analyst: Russia Feels Less Obligation Towards Syria Than Turkey

 

According to Markov, Russia/Turkey trade is rocketing from goods to energy, including gas, electricity, and even atomic. Russia is also allowing citizens to travel to and from both countries without visas, so Markov expects educators and scientists to begin working in both countries soon.

The day after Putin left, NATO agreed to allow Turkey to put missiles on its border with Syria. As allies with both nations, this puts Russia in an awkward position of perhaps being called on to negotiate between the two, but Markov muses that Russia may feel that it has less of an obligation towards Syria.

 

http://voicerussia.com/radio_broadcast/61124198/97025627.html

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CAN'T TRUST OUR GOVERNMENT WHY WOULD YOU? Europeans outraged over the US using Patriot Act for worldwide spying

 

 

Researchers from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands have condemned the United States for allowing the controversial Patriot Act to bypass foreign laws and let Americans intercept data from persons internationally.

In a just published study, Cloud Computing in Higher Education and Research Institutions and the USA Patriot Act, researchers from the school’s Institute for Information Law say that legislation enacted to allegedly protect the security of US citizens has in the process eroded privacy protections on a global scale.

As more and more companies and individuals across the world begin relying on cloud computing to store information digitally on remote servers, the Dutch researchers warn that the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allow for those files to be fed into the US intelligence community, disregarding privacy safeguards in place for others around the globe.

"Most cloud providers, and certainly the market leaders, fall within the US jurisdiction either because they are US companies or conduct systematic business in the US," Axel Arnbak, one of the authors of the research paper, tells CBS News. "In particular, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA) makes it easy for US authorities to circumvent local government institutions and mandate direct and easy access to cloud data belonging to non-Americans living outside the US, with little or no transparency obligations for such practices – not even the number of actual requests."

Indeed, the number of requests for wiretaps on email and phone accounts under the FAA remains something that even members of the US Congress’ intelligence committee are privy to, and that’s just in regards to Americans surveilled. Arnbak and his colleagues say they are concerned by what this legislation and measures included in and after the Patriot Act can have on an international audience.

In the abstract for their study, the researchers write that the Patriot Act “has started to play a symbolic role in the public debate” because “It is one important element in a larger, complex and dynamic legal framework for access to data for law enforcement and national security purposes.” Coupled with the FAA, US laws don’t limit only Americans to invasion of privacy.

Taking into account the Patriot Act, FISA and the 2008 amendments to the act, the researchers say their report describes vast “legal powers for the US government to obtain data of non-US persons located outside of the US from cloud providers that fall under its jurisdiction.”

“Such jurisdiction applies widely, namely to cloud services that conduct systematic business in the United States and is not dependent on the location where the data are stored, as is often assumed. For non-US persons located outside of the US, constitutional protection is not applicable and the statutory safeguards are minimal,” they warn.

To CBS, Arnbak says his fellow residents of the European Union could easily be in trouble, despite local efforts to limit outside interference.

"In the US legal framework, there is a legal doctrine called 'extra-territorial jurisdiction'. This implies that cloud providers operating anywhere in the EU, or anywhere in the world for that matter, have to comply with data requests from US authorities as soon as they fall under US laws," he says.

Given that more and more members of the international community are relating on cloud computing, the researchers warn that things could only get worse for Europeans interested in avoiding Uncle Sam.

"If US government agencies have no jurisdiction over an entity operating in the Netherlands, they may submit a request for mutual assistance under such agreements," one part of their paper reads. "But in the borderless cloud, in which activities are in the U.S., there is ‘no clear obligation under US law for the US government to rely on such agreements when seeking access to data on non-US persons.’”

Last year, Microsoft UK's managing director Gordon Frazer was asked, "Can Microsoft guarantee that EU-stored data, held in EU based datacenters, will not leave the European Economic Area under any circumstances – even under a request by the Patriot Act?"

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-patriot-act-cloud-381/