Syria starts moving chemical weapons

YouTube video purports to show a hit on a Syrian tank. Photo: AFP

SYRIA has started moving some parts of its huge stockpile of chemical weapons out of storage, US officials say, but it is uncertain whether the transfer is a precaution as security conditions across the country rapidly deteriorate, or something more sinister.

Some US analysts and politicians said Syria's President Bashar al-Assad might use chemical weapons in a last-ditch attack against an increasingly potent rebel force, possibly in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Other officials said Syrian forces might be moving parts of the arsenal to prevent it falling into rebel hands.

''The truth is, we just don't know,'' said a US official, who has been monitoring intelligence reports since the Syrians began moving the chemical weapons in recent days. ''There's a big gaping hole in what we know.''

Over the past four decades, Syria has amassed one of the largest undeclared stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the world, including sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide, the officials said.

Spokesmen for the Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the movements.

But Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said some chemical weapons had been moved in an area around Homs, where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in recent weeks. ''The Assad regime is losing control of its territory,'' Mr Tabler said. ''You don't move this stuff unless you have to, and they obviously felt they had to move it.''

A second US official with access to classified intelligence reports said rebels were placing increasing pressure on Syrian security forces across the country. ''The armed opposition is becoming more effective,'' said the official, who like the first official spoke on the condition of anonymity.

''It's using guerilla tactics more frequently to attack regime forces and improving tactical co-ordination. It appears the insurgents are now operating in larger chunks of territory,'' the official said.

''The situation is not at a tipping point as the regime still has significant military capabilities, but the military ground underneath Assad is increasingly unstable.''

Israel and the US have been monitoring movements of all Syrian weapons, and are believed to have allowed the Syrians to move some conventional weapons over the border into Lebanon without protesting, said one analyst. The rationale for Israel's not speaking up loudly is that any interference would play into the government's accusation that the entire uprising is an Israeli plot, the analyst said.

Obama administration officials, who have maintained from the beginning of the turmoil in Syria that the country's chemical and biological arsenal remained secure and in storage, warned the Assad government on Friday to keep it that way.

''We have repeatedly made it clear that the Syrian government has a responsibility to safeguard its stockpiles of chemical weapons, and that the international community will hold accountable any Syrian officials who fail to meet that obligation,'' said Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department.

But Republican representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said in a statement: ''We cannot discount that the Assad regime could make a decision to use these weapons in an act of desperation, and we must act accordingly.''

George Little, the Defence Department spokesman, said: ''We would caution them strongly against any intention to use those weapons. That would cross a serious red line.''

Jeffrey White, a former Defence Intelligence Agency intelligence officer who now studies Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said if the munitions were being deployed to firing units, that would suggest preparations were being made for their use. If they are being concentrated at a smaller number of secure sites, that would suggest concerns about enhancing security.