Syria's chemical weapons come back into play - as a matter of concern..... Is the resolve of the West weakening to force out Assad ? Signals indicate that might be the situation.....

http://www.infowars.com/cry-for-food-in-syria-may-be-opening-for-peace/

Cry for Food in Syria May be Opening for Peace

Christian Science Monitor
January 9, 2013

Hope of finding an international consensus to ending Syria’s civil war usually focuses on the political and military. Will the anti-Assad opposition coalition ever be a viable alternative? Will rebels ever take a major city?

Waiting for answers to such questions has only frustrated those wishing for peace and democracy in a country of 23 million at the heart of the Middle East. But as sometimes happens in a conflict, a consensus can be more easily found when there is a cry for humanitarian aid. A collective and compassionate response then provides an opening to discuss the really difficult issues.

On Tuesday, the United Nations warned that its food aid can no longer reach an estimated 1 million Syrians who have been internally displaced by fighting. With a winter setting in and bread prices nearly six times the norm, this plea should not be ignored by countries currently at odds over Syria’s future.

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http://www.debka.com/article/22671/Assad-firm-in-the-saddle-permits-Syrian-Turkish-Iranian-POWs-swaps-

Assad firm in the saddle, permits Syrian, Turkish Iranian POWs swaps

DEBKAfile Special Report January 9, 2013, 5:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Bashar Assad   Syrian rebels   prisoner exchange   Turkey 

Thousands of prisoners exchanged in Syria

The three-way prisoner exchange of thousands of Syrian, Turkish and Iranian prisoners Wednesday, Jan. 9, in Damascus and four other Syrian cities marked a turning-point in the 22-month old Syrian conflict which has cost upward of 60,000 lives. This was the first deal the Assad regime and the rebels have agreed and carried through since March 2011. It was made possible by Bashar Assad’s confidence, in the face of Western predictions of his imminent downfall, that his chances of survival had improved against the forces determined to oust him, while Syrian rebel leaders grasped they had better deal with the hated Syrian ruler for any hope of preserving any of their war gains.

Altogether, the Assad regime released Syrian 2,130 civilians, including 73 women and a number of foreigners, some of them Turks, and obtained the release of 48 Iranians held for six months by the rebel Free Syrian Army. The FSA claimed they were Revolutionary Guards officers and men, while Tehran insisted they were pilgrims visiting holy sites in Syria.

The prisoner exchange was organized by teams of the Turkish Muslim extremist IHH-Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources report, that the prisoner swap marked a moment in the ongoing  transition of the Syrian crisis from an international issue with a say for the United States, Europe and some Persian Gulf emirates, into a domestic contest, in which regional mediators - in this case Qatar and Turkey - had a role to play. For now, the Obama administration and NATO appear to have moved back from the military arena and left a clear field to the management of Moscow, Tehran and Ankara.

Four steps marked this transition from the third week of December 2012:

1. On December 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the Syrian government had “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught and they are under control for the time being.” Lavrov did not say who was in control of the weapons and why he thought they were out of danger of falling into rebel hands.

2.  The day before this announcement, US naval and air forces, piling up in waters opposite Syria from the third week of November, were abruptly ordered to pull back, a sign that the Obama administration had washed its hands of any military intervention in Syria without publicly stating this.
3. In the first week of January, 2013, the Syrian army finally repulsed a major Syrian rebel assault on Assad’s largest chemical weapons depot at the Al Safira military complex near Aleppo.In this engagement, too, the insurgents demonstrated they were capable only of limited, local gains, but not up to capturing major targets such as major cities and military sites. They were therefore not equal to vanquishing the army still loyal to Bashar Assad.

4.  The place of the departed US fleet in the eastern Mediterranean was gradually filled by alarge influx of Russian naval and marine forces. And so, when the Syrian ruler rose to deliver a speech at the Damascus opera house Sunday, Jan. 6, he knew he could afford to flout the calls for him to step down and declare he no longer takes dictation from the West. He knew that moored off the Syrian coast were up to 20 Russian warships carrying more than 2,000 Russian marines - on top of unwavering Iranian support for his regime.

The prisoner swap of Wednesday may usher in a lull in the fighting, some of DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources believe – especially in consideration of the exceptionally harsh winter conditions besetting the region. During that time, the two warring sides may try and feel their way toward more local or limited understandings as well as replenishing their military and diplomatic resources – either for a final winning throw or to improve their bargaining positions in future negotiations which were kicked off by the prisoner swap.
For now, Assad is evidently here to stay. To remove him, the rebels will have to reach him with an assassin’s bullet.

and....



http://www.debka.com/article/22668/Israel-State-of-Syrian-chemical-weapons-could-change-in-a-moment

Israel: State of Syrian chemical weapons could change in a moment

DEBKAfile Special Report January 8, 2013, 6:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  chemical weapons   Syria   US   Bashar Assad 

Syrian chemical weapons site

“Syria’s chemical weapons are under control for now, but no one in America or Israel can tell what the situation will be five minutes from now,” a senior Israeli defense official told DEBKAfile Tuesday, Jan.8. The situation is dangerously fluid because there is no certainty about who is in control, or when some Syrian chemical unit commander may take it into his head to use it.”

There were two touch-and-go moments in the last two months – first, when Assad was on the verge of directing chemical arms to be used against the rebels; second, when Al Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusrah front fighting in rebel ranks came close to getting hold of them. The first occurred in the last week of November and the second in the last ten days of December.
The New York Times Tuesday reported that, in the first instance, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence showing up on satellite imagery that “Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pound bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.”

American sources then mobilized international forces, Russia, China, Turkey, Jordan and other Arab nations for sharply worded messages to the Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and his senior commanders to stop the mixing of chemicals and preparation of bombs. The sources did not say what persuaded Assad to halt the process. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, there was no direct threat of US or NATO military action in Syria.Our sources add that, among the messages’ recipients, were commanders of the top secret Chemical Weapons Unit 450 of the Syrian Air Force. This brought to light for the first time that the US has developed direct channels of communications to Syrian unit commanders, including a top-secret air force outfit which has not so far taken part in the fighting.

According to DEBKAfile’s American sources, the bombs filled with sarin were not dismantled and they are still sitting in stores at - or in close proximity to - Syrian air forces bases, ready for operational use at short notice.

This means that the Syrian ruler in effect flouted the American demand, although it was backed by Moscow, to dismantle the bombs.  In his defiant speech Sunday, Jan. 6, Assad made it clear that he “no longer takes dictation from anyone” – especially the West.

It is important to note that sarin nerve gas once mixed has a life of 60 days, after which it must be destroyed. More than half of this period has elapsed and so the Syrian ruler has until the end of January to decide how he wants to dispose of those deadly bombs.
The German newspaper Die Welt recently quoted the head of the BIND external intelligence service as estimating that he Syrian Air Force was able to have chemical weapons ready for operation within four to six hours from receiving an order. The New York Times believes that two hours would be enough.
Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a rare comment on the Syrian chemical weapons question, told a cabinet meeting that the Syrian regime is very unstable and “the question of chemical weapons here worries us.” He said that Israel was coordinating with the United States and others “so that we might be prepared for any scenario and possibility that could arise.”

Then, in an interview Monday, Netanyahu warned that world peace is under grave peril from the nuclear weapons under development in Iran and Syria’s chemical arms arsenal, which could reach the wrong hands. A senior security official told DEBKAfile that the prime minister was referring to the repeated rebel assault on Syria’s largest chemical weapons depot at a=Al Safira near Aleppo, which has been repulsed by the Syrian army – for now.