SyriaThe Assad regime moving chemical weapons closer to delivery vehicles

Over the weekend, the besieged Assad regime has begun to move chemical munitions out of storage to military bases where the delivery vehicles for these weapons are based. The move of these munitions was captured by U.S. and Israeli intelligence assets, and confirmed by human sources inside the regime.

The readiness of the regime to place chemical warheads right next to the weapons – missiles, planes, tanks, and artillery – which will deliver them has dramatically increased the sense of alarm in the region, in Europe, and in Washington.

The New York Times reports that both American and Israeli officials are not yet sure whether Assad was getting ready to use these weapons. “These are desperate times for Assad, and this may simply be another sign of desperation,” one senior American diplomat told the Times on Sunday.

Back in in August, Obama said that any evidence that Assad was moving chemical weapons in a threatening way or making use of them is “a red line for us” that could prompt direct American intervention. “That would change my calculus,” he added. “That would change my equation.”

A senior Israeli official told the Times that the movement of the chemical weapons, and the apparent preparations to use them, could be a bluff, intended as a warning to the West at a moment when NATO and the United States were debating greater support to opposition groups. “It’s very hard to read Assad,” one senior Israeli official said. “But we are seeing a kind of action that we’ve never seen before,” he said, declining to elaborate.

Still, whether Assad is bluffing or not, the United States and Israel have been making preparations for moving to secure or destroy these weapons in the event the Assad uses them or loses control over them:

• The Times reports that a few months ago, the United States military quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there to prepare for the possibility that Syria would lose control of its chemical weapons.
• The Pentagon, after studying the issue and setting up plans, has told the Obama administration that any U.S. military effort to seize Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons would require upward of 75,000 troops.
• The Atlantic reports that Israel, over the past few weeks, has been seeking Jordan’s “permission” to bomb Syria’s chemical weapons production and storage sites, but that the Jordanians have so far declined to grant such permission. Intelligence officials told the Atlantic that although Israel could attack and destroy these sites on its own, the Israelis are concerned about the possible repercussions of such an attack on Jordan. Intelligence sources told the Atlantic that Israeli drones are patrolling the skies over the Jordan-Syria border, and that both American and Israeli drones are keeping watch over suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites.

With regard to the Syrians this weekend moving chemical weapons out of storage, a senior U.S. official told Fox News that “there are concerns about possible preparations for use” of the weapons, though “we don’t know yet if they plan to use them.”

The official added, “There are troubling signs of late.”

Yesterday (Monday), President Obama issued a stern warning to Assad and his officials. “I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching,” the president said in a speech at the National Defense University, in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”

Hillary Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, also reiterated Obama’s earlier declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action. “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 it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur,” she said.

Fox News quotes an administration official told the Associated Press that the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The United States is trying to ascertain whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official told AP.