Hillary Clinton meets on Syria, chemical weapon rumors as ground campaign may be looming
The situation in Syria is accelerating, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday, amid reports that President Bashar al-Assad’s government may be preparing to use chemical weapons.
2011 cartoon by Carlos Latuff
“Events on the ground in Syria are accelerating, and we see that in many different ways. The pressure against the regime in and around Damascus seems to be increasing,” Clinton said before meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and the U.N. special envoy to Syria.
Chemical weapons were one topic on the table, said Clinton, who met with the leaders while she was in Dublin for an international security conference.
U.S. officials are “very concerned” that al-Assad’s forces may use chemical weapons as rebels advance, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Washington Thursday.
“The intelligence that we have raises serious concerns that this is being considered,” he said.
“I think it’s unreasonable to expect that the battle is in its last stages right now,” said Rami Abdelrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has tracked the fighting since it began in March 2011.
Fighting around the capital city has intensified over the past week, prompting predictions among Western opponents of Assad that an endgame is approaching.
“The big advances are only in the media. The situation is certainly not good, for anyone. The Syrian economy is dead. But conditions for the rebels are not good either … Rebel-held parts of Aleppo are barely eating and are always at risk of army shelling.”
“It is true however that the regime is withdrawing from many areas… and the regime is being exhausted,” he told Reuters.
PakAlert Press contends that a ground invasion is the endgame for the US as support for a strike on Iran is waning.
“Syria – is back in play. And sure enough, as both the most recent naval map update, which shows a US aircraft carrier and a big deck amphibious warfare ship, both of which house thousands of troops and numerous offensive aircraft, and an RT news flash, indicating that thousands of troops have amassed near the Syrian shore confirm, the time for a US invasion may be near. The alibi? “Chemical weapons” of mass or non-mass destruction. In other words the Iraq playbook all over again.”
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