U.K. joins U.S. in concern that Syria used sarin

Cameron: Evidence grows

Members of the Free Syrian Army prepare weapons in the neighborhood of al-Amerieh in Aleppo. President Barack Obama reiterated Friday that any use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would be a “game changer” in the United Nations’ involvement.
Members of the Free Syrian Army prepare weapons in the neighborhood of al-Amerieh in Aleppo. President Barack Obama reiterated Friday that any use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would be a “game changer” in the United Nations’ involvement.

LONDON - As fighting flared in northern areas of Damascus after fierce clashes to the east, Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday echoed President Barack Obama administration’s cautious assessment of the use of chemical munitions in Syria, saying there is “limited” but “growing evidence” that such weapons had been used, probably by government forces.

Meanwhile, Obama reiterated Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a “game changer,” but he cautioned that the United States needs more evidence that President Bashar Assad has used the deadly agents against his people.

Syrian state media claimed Thursday that government forces had overrun a strategic, rebel-held town controlling a key insurgent supply corridor to the east of the capital.

On Friday, anti-government activists produced video footage said to show heavy clashes between government forces and rebels in the Barzeh area of northern Damascus, with gray and black smoke rising from battered high-rises into the early morning sky. The provenance of the video could not be independently verified.

While the fighting swirled on the ground, much Western attention has been focused on whether chemical weapons have been used to the extent that they might trigger foreign military intervention, a possibility that Cameron sought to rule out Friday.

The British government, like Washington, is concerned to avoid a repetition of events that led to the 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq when the presence of unconventional weapons, cited as justification for military action, was never corroborated.

The White House said Thursday that the nation’s intelligence agencies had assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that the government of Assad had used the chemical agent sarin on a small scale.

It said, however, that more conclusive evidence is needed before Obama would take action.

Cameron, speaking on a BBC television show Friday, said that while evidence is limited, “there’s growing evidence that we have seen, too, of the use of chemical weapons, probably by the regime. It is extremely serious, this is a war crime, and we should take it very seriously.”

British authorities are trying to avoid “rushing into print” about the use of chemical weapons, Cameron said.

“But this is extremely serious, and I think what President Barack Obama said was absolutely right - that this should form for the international community a red line for us to do more,” he said.

He repeated, however, that Britain had no appetite to intervene militarily, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama met at the White House with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whose nation has seen refugees spilling over its border with Syria. The president promised to vigorously pursue more information about chemical-weapons attacks, including exactly who might be responsible and how they might have been carried out.

“There are a range of questions around how, when, where these weapons may have been used,” Obama said Friday. “We have to make these assessments deliberately, but I think all of us - not just in the United States, but around the world - recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations.”

In his first public remarks since the U.S. disclosed it has evidence that chemical weapons were used in Syria, Obama didn’t specify how the U.S. might respond and set no deadline for answers.

“The president wants the facts,” spokesman Jay Carney said. “And I’m not going to set a timeline because the facts need to be what drives this investigation, not a deadline.”

The president is facing political pressure from a contingent of senators, led by Arizona Republican John McCain, who favor a quick and strong U.S. response. But even those lawmakers appear opposed to an American military invasion and are instead supporting creation of a protective “no-fly zone” or another narrow, safe zone inside Syria, along its border with Turkey.

Some lawmakers voiced concern that if Obama doesn’t make good on his promise to respond aggressively if it’s shown that Assad used chemical weapons, his inaction could send a damaging message to the world.

“There’s no question that when the United States takes a position that this crosses a line that our failure to respond has implications,” said Rep. David Cicilline, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., wondered whether the red line was “turning into a pink line.”

White House officials insisted Obama’s caution is not an indication that the line is shifting. Firm evidence of a chemical weapons attack would trigger an unspecified U.S. response, officials said, and will not be contingent on the size and scope of the use.

After a private briefing by Secretary of State John Kerry, lawmakers stressed the importance of building international support for any military move against Syria rather than unilateral U.S. action.

“We want to do everything we can to avoid putting boots on the ground,” said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee. “I don’t think that we, just as the United States, want to go in to another war.”

Syrian officials denied Friday that government forces had used chemical weapons against rebels.

The regime countered that it was the rebels who fired chemical weapons - pointing to their capture of a chemical factory last year as proof of their ability to do so.

Both sides have used the issue to try to sway world opinion.

“The red line has been crossed, and this has now been documented by the international community. We hope the U.S. will abide by the red line set by Mr. Obama himself,” Loay al-Mikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group for rebel fighters, told The Associated Press.

“We need urgent action, otherwise Bashar Assad will not hesitate to use his entire chemical and unconventional weapons stockpile against the Syrian people,” he said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Syria to give U.N. experts “immediate and unfettered access” to investigate the allegations of chemical-weapons use.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Friday that U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane wrote another letter to Syrian authorities Thursday urging the government to grant access to the U.N. chemical-weapons experts without conditions.

Ban appointed a team of chemical-weapons experts to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Khan al-Assal in Aleppo, and in Homs, where he received the most evidence. But Syria has only given permission for the experts to visit Khan al-Assal.

The experts have not been in Syria.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Friday that the U.S. is “working to establish credible and corroborative facts to build on this intelligence assessment” and to definitively say “whether or not the president’s red line has been crossed.”

Asked about Syria’s denials, he said that “if the regime has nothing to hide, they should let the U.N. investigators in immediately so we can get to the bottom of this.”

While Obama met with Jordan’s king in Washington, about 300 Jordanians demonstrated against the proposed deployment of 200 U.S. troops on their nation’s border with Syria.

Some protesters warned that the small force could be just the beginning of a process that leads to U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war to secure its chemical weapons. Other demonstrators, backing the regime, burned American flags.

Meanwhile, SANA, the official news agency in Syria, said that soldiers fighting on the side of Assad had overwhelmed the opposition in the town of Otaiba and had “discovered a number of tunnels, which were used by terrorists to move and transfer weapons and ammunition.”

Assad uses the word terrorist to describe armed opponents, backed by the West and many Arab states, who are seeking his overthrow in a revolt that is now more than two years old.

Rebel fighters said Thursday that, despite the official claims, the insurgents are still holding on to some parts of Otaiba.

An activist who had been involved in the fighting and who spoke on the condition that he be identified only as Ammar said the claimed capture of the town is an exaggeration. “Both sides are still fighting,” the activist said. “The regime are attacking from the east side, the Free Syrian Army from the west side.”

Civilians had fled the town, the activist said, acknowledging that the fighting had disrupted rebel supply chains. “We have convoys stopped now because roads have been closed, and we can’t use them for the time being.”

In the contested western Syrian town of Qusayr near the Lebanon border, an anti-Assad activist reached through Skype said government forces had bombed the town center with helicopters six times Thursday, killing and wounding an unspecified number of residents and destroying 25 houses. The Syrian Observatory said at least 10 people were killed.

Elsewhere, international concern escalated over the fate of two high-ranking Syrian church clergymen from Aleppo who were kidnapped Monday. Colleagues of the kidnap victims - the Greek Orthodox archbishop, Paul Yazigi, and the Syriac Orthodox archbishop, Yohanna Ibrahim - said they remained captive, contradicting unconfirmed reports earlier in the week that they had been freed. Their whereabouts and kidnappers are unknown.

Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister of Russia, a supporter of the Syrian government, said Thursday during a visit to Beirut that Russia condemned the kidnapping and was making efforts to secure the release of the two clergymen.

Information for this article was contributed by Alan Cowell, Hwaidi Saad, Hania Mourtada, Hala Droubi and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times; by Dale Gavlak, Donna Cassata, Julie Pace, Dennis Junius and Bradley Klapper of The Associated Press; and by Terry Atlas and Roger Runningen of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/27/2013

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