SyriaWestern intelligence: Assad plans to retain residual chemical weapons capability
Israeli intelligence officials say the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria may be concealing a small amount of the chemical weapons in its possession, while pretending that it is fully cooperating with the process to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. This assessment is similar to conclusions reached by the U.S. and U.K. intelligence communities in the past two weeks. The Israeli view is that the retention of chemicals by the Assad regime has to do with the ongoing fight against the rebels, and is not an indication that the regime is contemplating their use against Israel. A senior intelligence source also said that unlike the consensus in the intelligence community a year or two ago, the Israeli defense establishment no longer considers bringing down the regime in Damascus as necessarily positive for Israel.
Israeli intelligence officials say the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria may be concealing a small amount of the chemical weapons in its possession, while pretending that it is fully cooperating with the process to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. This assessment is similar to conclusions reached by the U.S. and U.K. intelligence communities in the past two weeks.
To date, about 92 percent of the Syrian chemical weapons have been dismantled, and the production facilities for such weapons have been destroyed.
On 27 April the Assad regime missed a second deadline for the destruction of its chemical arsenal.
Haaretz reports that recently, Western intelligence services, relying on information sources they regard as reliable, have concluded that the regime has been trying secretly to keep a residual chemical capability, probably for the purpose of warning the opposition in the country’s civil war. In recent months reports emerged again of a renewed use by the regime of chemical weapons against rebels and against civilians in rebel-controlled neighborhoods.
The reports from the field say that unlike earlier employments of chemical weapons, which culminated in the August 2013 attack on the outskirts of Damascus in which more than 1,000 civilians were killed, the recent use of chemical weapons saw chemical weapons which neutralize and disable people for a few hours, but do not kill. There have been reports from different rebel-held regions in Syria it that the Syrian air force was dropping chlorine bombs on populated areas (see “Israel: Assad used chemical weapons on 27 March in a Damascus neighborhood,” HSNW, 8 April 2014).
Israeli military sources told Haaretz that the use of chemicals is an indication that the government is encountering difficulties in conducting ground operations against the rebels. This view is supported by the recent increase use by the regime of dropping barrel and incendiary bombs from planes and the increasing use of missiles and rockets.
The Israeli view is that the retention of chemicals by the Assad regime has to do with the ongoing fight against the rebels, and is not an indication that the regime is contemplating their use against Israel. Accordingly, Israel has not changed its policy, announced earlier this year, of ending the distribution of gas masks.
Israel says that there is also no evidence that Syria is transferring chemical weapons to Hezbollah, eve as the Assad regime continues to try to transfer other advanced weapons systems to the Lebanese Shi’aorganization.
Haaretz notes that in a conversation with a senior Israeli intelligence official, the official acknowledged that the intelligence community has amended its assessments of the likelihood of survival of the Assad regime, compared to the estimates two years ago which said that the regime was approaching its end. The source said that current estimates have concluded that the regime is more stable than a year ago, and in many parts of Syria has successfully checked the progress of the rebels, thanks to massive assistance from Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.
The senior intelligence source also said that unlike the consensus in the intelligence community a year or two ago, the Israeli defense establishment no longer considers bringing down the regime in Damascus as necessarily positive for Israel. The main reason is that it has become increasingly clear that if the Assad regime falls, the dominant forces among the rebels who will take over the country will be extremist Islamist organizations, some of which are affiliated with a Qaeda.
“Morally speaking, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Assad is a war criminal who is murdering tens of thousands of civilians. But in terms of security, it’s not that we have positive expectations of those likely to replace him,” the senior official told the newspaper.
He added that it is not Israel who will determine the outcome of the internal war being fought in Syria, “but it’s clear that in terms of the balance of deterrence, it’s easier for us when we’re dealing with an official address in Damascus, rather than a chaos of gangs as in Somalia.”
