Syria "likely" to have used chemical weapons, says UK

By Andrew Roche

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday it believed it was "very likely" the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, and Turkey said it was testing victims of the Syrian civil war for traces of such substances.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed gratitude to Russia for its willingness to try to arrange a "Geneva two" conference to negotiate an end to the conflict, in a sign of a thawing of the long diplomatic chill between Washington and Moscow, Syria's strongest ally.

Damascus and the head of the Arab League welcomed the apparent rapprochement between the United States and Russia this week. Syrian opposition leaders are skeptical of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad hang on to power.

Kerry, in Rome, said however a transition government would have to have the "mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgment President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government".

Syria's foreign ministry said Damascus was convinced by the "the firm Russian stance which is based on the U.N. principles of non-interference in internal affairs or the threat to use force against the safety of any state".

Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defense system which would help Assad fend off foreign military intervention as he battles a more than two-year-old rebellion.

The S-300 missile is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 125-mile (200-km) ranges. It would enhance Syria's current Russian-supplied defenses, which did not deter Israel from launching air strikes around Damascus last weekend.

"We have raised objections to this (sale) with the Russians, and the Americans have too," an Israeli official told Reuters.

Kerry said in Rome that Washington would prefer Russia not to sell weapons to Syria.

CHEMICAL TRACES

Western states have been reluctant to consider military action against Assad, but U.S. President Barack Obama has said the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and trigger a strong response.

Evidence of such use is so far fragmentary and disputed.

Asked about reports that rebel forces had used the banned nerve agent sarin, a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "Our assessment is that chemical weapons use in Syria is very likely to have been initiated by the regime. We have no evidence to date of opposition use."

Turkey has sent a team of eight experts to the border with Syria to test wounded victims of the country's civil war for traces of chemical and biological weapons, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.

Turkey started testing blood samples last week from Syrian casualties brought over the border for treatment to determine whether they were victims of a chemical weapons attack.

The civil defense team, equipped with a specialist vehicle which can detect evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear substances, has been stationed at the Cilvegozu border gate near the town of Reyhanli, Anatolian said.

Turkey's Star newspaper, which is close to the government, reported on Thursday that the forensic institute that has been testing the blood samples had found traces of ricin, a highly toxic substance which can be used as a chemical warfare agent.

Turkish officials have declined to confirm whether the tests have been completed or to comment on any results.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said meanwhile the United Nations should declare Syria's Islamist militant al-Nusra Front a terrorist organization, to differentiate it from other Syrian rebel groups.

France wants to bolster the opposition Syrian National Coalition, while pushing it to expand, unify and guarantee that a new government in Damascus would respect the rights of all communities, Fabius said in an interview with Le Monde daily.

(Additional reporting by William James in London, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Arshad Mohammed in Rome, Ayman Samir in Cairo, Catherine Bremer in Paris and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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"Evidence" of Syria chemical weapons use not up to U.N. standard

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Assertions of chemical weapon use in Syria by Western and Israeli officials citing photos, sporadic shelling and traces of toxins do not meet the standard of proof needed for a U.N. team of experts waiting to gather their own field evidence.

Weapons inspectors will only determine whether banned chemical agents were used in the two-year-old conflict if they are able to access sites and take soil, blood, urine or tissue samples and examine them in certified laboratories, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which works with the United Nations on inspections.

That type of evidence, needed to show definitively if banned chemicals were found, has not been presented by governments and intelligence agencies accusing Syria of using chemical weapons against insurgents.

"This is the only basis on which the OPCW would provide a formal assessment of whether chemical weapons have been used," said Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the Hague-based OPCW.

With Syria blocking the U.N. mission, it is unlikely they will gain that type of access any time soon.

The head of the U.N. inspection mission, Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, will meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on Monday.

The United Nations wrote to the Syrian government again on Thursday to push for unconditional and unfettered access for the U.N. investigators, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters on Friday.

"The Secretary-General urges the Syrian government to respond swiftly and favorably so that this mission can carry out its work in Syria," Nesirky said. "You need to be able to go into Syria to be able to do that investigation properly."

"In the meantime the members of that team have been collating and analyzing the evidence and information that is available to date from outside," he said, adding that there was a concern "about the degradation of evidence" within Syria.

The White House on Thursday said the U.S. intelligence community has assessed with varying degrees of confidence that the chemical agent sarin was used by forces allied with President Bashar al-Assad. But it noted that "the chain of custody is not clear."

QUESTIONS AROUND 'PHYSIOLOGICAL' SAMPLES

The Israeli military this week suggested Syrian forces used sarin and showed reporters pictures of a body with symptoms indicating the nerve gas was the cause of death.

Ralf Trapp, an independent consultant on chemical and biological weapons control, said, "There is a limit to what you can extract from photograph evidence alone. What you really need is to get information from on the ground, to gather physical evidence and to talk to witnesses as well as medical staff who treated victims."

Sarin is a fast-acting nerve agent that was originally developed in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide. It is a clear, colorless, tasteless and odorless liquid that can evaporate quickly into a gas and spread into the environment, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Because it evaporates so quickly, sarin presents an immediate but short-lived threat.

Sean Kaufman of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research at Emory University, a former biodefense expert for the CDC, said people who have been exposed to sarin most typically die or recover fully. Testing for sarin, he said, requires access to the environment where the nerve agent was used or the clothing of someone who was exposed.

The White House, which has called the use of chemicals weapons in Syria a "red line" for possible military intervention, said its assessment was partly based on "physiological" samples. But a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity declined to detail the evidence. It is unclear who supplied it.

Even if samples were made available to the OPCW by those making the assertions, the organisation could not use them.

"The OPCW would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors don't gather in the field because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity," said Luhan.

Established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of toxic agents in warfare, the OPCW has exhaustive rules on how inspectors collect and handle evidence, starting with the sealing of a site like a crime scene.

Multiple samples must be taken and there need to be "blank" samples from unexposed matter and tissue, to set a baseline against which levels of contamination could be determined.

The samples would be split, sealed and flown in dark, cooled air transports to up to three certified laboratories, including one at the OPCW's headquarters in The Hague.

A team of 15 experts, put together in response to a request from the U.N. Secretary General to investigate the claims, has been on standby in Cyprus for nearly three weeks.

Headed by Sellstrom, it includes analytical chemists and World Health Organisation experts on the medical effects of exposure to toxins.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Giles Elgood, Mary Milliken and Cynthia Osterman)

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Hagel, Dempsey Detail US-Jordan Contingency Planning on Syria's Chemical Weapons

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey both warned Congress on Wednesday about the unintended consequences of a U.S. military intervention in Syria. Hagel also provided the first details of the Pentagon's efforts in assisting Jordan's military for the possibility of having to secure Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, including $70 million worth of training and equipment.

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee both Hagel and Dempsey cautioned that a U.S. military intervention in Syria could have unintended consequences and should be reserved as a "last resort."

Two years of fighting to bring down the regime of Syrian President Basher al Assad have killed an estimated 70,000 Syrians and created a million refugees. Both Democratic and Republican senators on the committee have advocated the Obama administration consider some form of U.S. military assistance to assist the Syrian opposition in the form of a no-fly zone or the establishment of a humanitarian aid corridor.

"We have an obligation and responsibility to think through the consequences of direct U.S. military action in Syria," said Hagel. He added that "military intervention at this point could hinder humanitarian relief operations. It could embroil the United States in a significant, lengthy, and uncertain military commitment."

More importantly he warned that it could have "the unintended consequence of bringing the United States into a broader regional conflict or proxy war. " He stressed that "the best outcome for Syria - and the region - is a negotiated, political transition to a post-Assad Syria."

He later used blunter language in describing how all factors should be weighed in considering a U.S. military option in Syria. "You better be damn sure, as sure as you can be, before you get into something, because once you're into it, there isn't any backing out, whether it's a no-fly zone, safe zone, protect these - whatever it is. Once you're in, you can't unwind it. You can't just say, well, it's not going as well as I thought it would go, so we're going to get out.

Gen. Dempsey also told the committee that " before we take action, we have to be prepared for what comes next." He noted that the use of force in an area like Syria where the ethnic and religious divisions "dominate" is "unlikely to produce predictable outcomes." He explained that such a scenario "is not a reason to avoid intervention in conflict, rather, to emphasize that unintended consequences are the rule with military interventions of this sort."

In his opening remarks Hagel presented the most detailed outline yet of American efforts in helping Jordan prepare for the possibility of having to secure the Assad regime's large chemical weapons stockpile should the regime collapse. For much of the past year Pentagon officials have declined to provide details about such efforts, instead making vague references about contingency planning with regional partners for such a scenario.

Hagel told the committee that the Pentagon "has plans in place to respond to the full range of chemical weapons scenarios." He disclosed that the U.S. has provided $70 million in funding to Jordan "for training and equipment to detect and stop any chemical weapons transfers along its border with Syria, and developing Jordanian capacity to identify and secure chemical weapons assets."

However, when Sen. John McCain asked Gen. Dempsey if he was confident that American troops would be able to secure Syria's chemical weapons, Dempsey said, "Not as I sit here today, simply because they've been moving it and the number of sites is quite numerous."

According to Hagel, the U.S. military has also prepared for other contingencies such as " the potential spillover of violence across Syria's borders that could threaten Allies and partners." Furthermore, he said, the Pentagon had "been developing options and planning for a post-Assad Syria," though he said he was not able to provide details in public.

Hagel also announced that last week he ordered the deployment to Jordan of a headquarters element from the 1 st Armored Division based at Fort Bliss, Texas.

They will replace the several hundred American military members from various units who have been in Jordan since last summer working with the Jordanian military in contingency planning related to Syria's chemical weapons, humanitarian efforts and preventing a spillover of violence from Syria into Jordan.

A Defense official said the headquarters will provide "a cohesive command and control element with our Jordanian counterparts." The official also said that if needed its structure would enable it to "be capable of establishing a Joint Task Force headquarters that would provide command and control for Chemical Weapons response, humanitarian assistance efforts and stability operations."

Hagel also referred to the other forms of assistance the U.S. is providing to Syrian refugees and opposition groups. That includes $385 million in assistance to help ease the humanitarian and refugee crisis in Syria, as well as $117 million in non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition in the form of communications and medical equipment.

The Defense secretary told the committee that he would be visiting Jordan next week as part of a Middle East tour that will see him making stops in Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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Syria accuses UN chief of expanding weapons probe

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria has rejected what it says is an attempt by the U.N. secretary-general to broaden the scope of a government request for an international investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in the country's north.

Syria asked the U.N. last month to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons by rebels in March on the village of Khan al-Assal. The rebels blame regime forces.

On Monday, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said all reports about the use of chemical weapons in Syria — not just those in which the government accuses rebels — should be examined.

The Foreign Ministry responded that granting U.N. investigators access to the whole country would constitute "a violation of Syrian sovereignty."

It said Syria is still is ready to grant inspectors access to Khan al-Assal.

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North Korea to restart nuclear reactor in weapons bid

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States has positioned a warship off the Korean coast as a shield against ballistic missile attack as South Korea's new president vowed swift retaliation against a North Korean strike amid soaring tensions on the peninsula.

But Washington also said it had seen no worrisome mobilization of armed forces by the North Koreans despite bellicose rhetoric over a ramping up of international sanctions against Pyongyang over nuclear weapons tests.

"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," South Korean President Park Geun-hye told the defense minister and senior officials.

North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of U.N. sanctions in response to its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power.

In Washington, the White House has said the United States takes seriously North Korea's war threats. But White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday: "I would note that despite the harsh rhetoric we are hearing from Pyongyang, we are not seeing changes to the North Korean military posture, such as large-scale mobilizations and positioning of forces."

North Korea further escalated its rhetoric on Saturday by saying it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in response to what it termed the "hostile" military drills.

A U.S. defense official said the USS McCain, an Aegis-class guided-missile destroyer used for ballistic missile defense, was being positioned off the peninsula's southwestern coast.

"This is a prudent move that provides greater missile defense options should (they) become necessary," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The ship was not expected to participate in any exercises, the official added.

South Korea has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.

Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.

CHINA CALLED TO HELP ENFORCE SANCTIONS

North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to put its missile units on standby to fire at U.S. military bases in South Korea and in the Pacific.

The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The Pentagon said it was the fourth time F-22s had been deployed to South Korea.

Australia, a close U.S. ally and rotating U.N. Security Council member, said it would urge China to help enforce sanctions banning the flow of technology and equipment to North Korea.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who leaves on Friday for Beijing, plans to call on Chinese leaders to help bolster stop-and-search provisions for shipping to and from North Korea, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said. Canberra also plans its own banking and financial sanctions.

"The immediate priority is to see the sanctions agreed on by the Security Council are properly enforced," Carr said on Tuesday.

KIM JONG-UN TIGHTENS GRIP ON POWER

North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and has cut all hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

At a recent meeting of North Korea's ruling Workers Party Central Committee, leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip for foreign aid for the impoverished nation.

"The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are ... (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself," KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Songun is the Korean word for the "Military First" policy preached by Kim's father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state's scarce resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and pursue development of weapons of mass destruction.

At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party's politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.

Former premier Pak Pong-ju, a key confidant of the leadership dynasty, was re-appointed to the post from which he was fired in 2007 for failing to implement economic reforms.

Pak, believed to be in his 70s, is viewed as a key ally of Jang Song-thaek, the young Kim's uncle and also a protege of Kim's aunt. Pak is viewed as a pawn in a power game that has seen Jang and his wife re-assert power over military leaders.

Analysts said the move would not likely change North Korea's approach to a confrontation that appears to have dragged the two Koreas closer to war.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, Phil Stewart, David Alexander and Jeff Mason in WASHINGTON; Editing by Will Dunham and Michael Perry)

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Administration still pushing for assault weapons ban: Biden

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the Obama administration would continue to press for an assault weapons ban as part of gun control legislation despite a serious setback on the issue earlier this week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged on Tuesday that there was not enough support for the ban in the Senate, meaning it would fail when gun control legislation comes to the floor of the chamber next month.

Biden, who has led President Barack Obama's push for tighter gun regulations, said he was undeterred.

"We are still pushing that it pass," Biden told NPR in an interview, according to its website.

"I believe that the vast majority of the American people agree with us, the vast majority of gun owners agree with us, that military-style assault weapons are — these are weapons of war. They don't belong in the street," he said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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Chemical weapons use in Syria would be "outrageous crime:" U.N. chief

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the director general of the independent Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Tuesday they were deeply concerned about the alleged used of chemical weapons in Syria.

"The Secretary-General remains convinced that the use of chemical weapons by any party under any circumstances would constitute an outrageous crime," Ban's office said in a statement after he spoke by telephone with OPCW Director General Ahmet Uzumcu.

The OPCW is a Hague-based body charged with overseeing the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Syrian rebel chief pleads for weapons

BEIRUT (AP) — The chief of Syrian rebel forces says his fighters are in "desperate" need of weapons rather than food supplies and bandages that the U.S. now plans to provide.

The Obama administration says it will — for the first time — provide non-lethal aid directly to rebels, and announced an additional $60 million in assistance to the political opposition fighting to topple President Bashar Assad's regime.

But Gen. Salim Idris, chief of staff of the Syrian opposition's Supreme Military Council, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that the modest package of aid to rebels — comprising an undetermined amount of food rations and medical supplies — will not help them win against Assad's forces who have superior air power.

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Syrian rebel chief: Fighters desperate for weapons

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of Syria's rebels said Friday that the food and medical supplies the United States plans to give his fighters for the first time won't bring them any closer to defeating President Bashar Assad's forces in the country's civil war.

"We don't want food and drink, and we don't want bandages. When we're wounded, we want to die. The only thing we want is weapons," Gen. Salim Idris, chief of staff of the opposition's Supreme Military Council, told The Associated Press by telephone.

The former brigadier in Assad's army warned that the world's failure to provide heavier arms is only prolonging the nearly 2-year-old uprising that has killed an estimated 70,000 people.

In what was described as a significant policy shift, the Obama administration said Thursday it was giving an additional $60 million in assistance to Syria's political opposition and said it would, for the first time, provide non-lethal aid directly to rebels battling to topple Assad.

The move was announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at an international conference on Syria in Rome. In the coming days, several European nations are expected to take similar steps in working with the military wing of the opposition to increase pressure on Assad to step down and pave the way for a democratic transition.

But the frustration expressed by Idris is shared by most of his colleagues in the Syrian opposition, as well as by scores of rebels fighting in Syria. They feel abandoned by the outside world while the Assad regime pounds them with artillery and bombs.

The main rebel units, known together as the Free Syrian Army, regrouped in December under a unified, Western-backed command headed by Idris and called the Supreme Military Council, following promises of more military assistance once a central council was in place. Despite those pledges, opposition members say very little has been delivered in terms of financial aid, and more importantly, in weapons and ammunition.

The international community remains reluctant to send weapons, fearing they may fall into the hands of extremists increasingly gaining ground among the rebels.

Mouaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, has lamented the West's focus on the presence of Islamic militants among the fighters. In a forceful speech Thursday to the Rome conference, he said the media reports give "more attention to the length of fighters' beards than to the (regime's) massacres."

Some Syrians expressed their disappointment on social media websites. One showed a photo of Kerry carrying a toy gun as a gift for the rebels. Another depicted a three-wheeled cart, of the kind usually used by farmers, with the words: "The first of the nonlethal weapons has arrived."

Idris, a 55-year-old who studied in Germany and taught electronics at a Syrian military college before defecting in July, said the modest package of aid — consisting of an undetermined amount of food rations and medical supplies — will not help them win against Assad's forces who regularly use warplanes to pound rebel strongholds.

"We need anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to stop Bashar Assad's criminal, murderous regime from annihilating the Syrian people," he said. "The whole world knows what we need, and yet they watch as the Syrian people are slaughtered."

Still, he said he hoped that the promised aid is delivered, which would provide some relief to the civilians caught in the fighting.

Russia, meanwhile, sharply criticized the decision by Western powers to boost support for Syrian opposition forces, saying the promised assistance would only intensify the conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the moves announced in Rome "encourage extremists to seize power by force."

Russia is a close ally of Syria that has continued to supply arms to Assad's regime as well as shielding the country from U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Idris denied media reports that the rebels have recently received arms shipments and said his troops were suffering from "severe shortages" in weapons and ammunitions.

Croatia's president said Friday his country will withdraw about 100 peacekeeping troops from the Syria-Israel border after reports that Syrian rebels have been armed with Croatian weapons. The Croatian government fears its troops could become targets for Syrian government soldiers fighting the rebels.

Croatian officials have also denied reports by local media and The New York Times that arms, including machine guns, rifles and anti-tank grenades used in the Balkan wars in the 1990s have recently been sent to the Syrian rebels.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said despite the official denials, "everyone has read those reports, and our soldiers are no longer safe."

Fierce clashes continued in northern Syria between government forces and rebels attacking a police academy near Aleppo, the country's largest city and commercial hub.

Rebels backed by captured tanks have been trying to storm the police academy outside the city since launching a new offensive last week. Activists say the academy, which has become a key front in the fight for Aleppo, has been turned into a military base used to shell rebel-held neighborhoods in the city and surrounding countryside.

Syrian's state-run news agency said government troops defending the academy had killed dozens of opposition fighters and destroyed five rebel vehicles.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group also reported heavy fighting around the school and said there were several rebel casualties.

The Observatory said clashes were still raging around Aleppo's landmark 12th century Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mosque was heavily damaged last year just weeks after a fire gutted the city's famed medieval market.

There were conflicting reports about whether the rebels had managed to force regime troops out of the mosque and take full control of the holy site.

Mohammed al-Khatib of the Aleppo Media Center activist group said the mosque was in rebel hands, although clashes were still raging.

"The regime forces left lots of ammunition in it (the mosque), with guns and rocket-propelled grenades," he said via Skype.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said rebels have been in control of at least half of the mosque complex for days, but he could not confirm that they had captured all of it.

Near the capital of Damascus, activists said the bodies of 10 men — most of them shot in the head — were found dumped on the side of a road between the suburbs of Adra and Dumair. Such incidents have become a frequent occurrence in the civil war.

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Lucas and Ben Hubbard in Beirut contributed to this report.

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