Sources close to the French Defense Ministry reported Friday, Dec. 7, that a Western-Arab military intervention against the Assad regime is due to begin shortly with the participation of the US, France, Britain, Turkey, Jordan and other anti-Assad Arab nations. DEBKAfile: The reference is to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar’s special forces.
Our military sources add that the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle carrying a complement of marines is deployed in the Mediterranean, having joined the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and at least five British warships which are also carrying a large marine force.
In the second and third weeks of November, British and French naval forces, plus 2,600 special ops combatants from both nations, performed landing-and-capture exercises against fortified locations on the coast and mountains of Albania as practice for potential operations against similar terrain in Syria, where the Alawite Mountains loom over the coastal towns of Latakia and Tartus.
The troops landing there would head for the Alawite Mts. to prevent Assad and his loyal units from retreating to his mountain stronghold and fighting on from there - as he plans to do if he is forced to flee Damascus.
French sources told Le Point magazine that the NATO mission for Syria, including the UK and the US, would be modeled on the Western intervention in Libya in 2011. It would combine an aerial blitz with ground action by special forces for destroying Assad’s chemical weapons stocks, his air force and his air defense systems. 
See earlier DEBKAfile reports on the Syrian chemical warfare threat.

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http://blogs.aljazeera.com/liveblog/topic/syria-153

Syria

Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Damascus International Airport a legitimate target on Friday, warning civilians and airlines they would approach it "at their own risk".
"The rebel brigades who have been putting the airport under siege decided yesterday that the airport is a military zone," said Nabil al-Amir, a spokesman for the rebels' Damascus Military Council.
"The airport is now full of [government] armoured vehicles and soldiers."
"Civilians who approach it now do so at their own risk," he said.
Fighters had "waited two weeks for the airport to be emptied of most civilians and airlines" before declaring it a target, he added.
He did not say what they would do if aircraft tried to land. A rebel spokesman on Thursday said fighters would not "storm the airport but we will blockade it".
Foreign airlines have suspended all flights to Damascus since fighting approached the airport in the past week, although some Syrian Air flights have used the airport in recent days. - Reuters