(NEW YORK) MintPress – The stakes in Syria are getting infinitely higher as the rebels gain ground. While fears mount inside the country that President Bashar Assad will resort to chemical warfare, the United States is walking a fine line between supporting the opposition and backing Islamic extremists.
The U.S. and other nations have warned that the use of such weapons by Assad’s forces is a “red line” that would prompt a swift international response.
Meanwhile, rebel forces are hoping for stronger weaponry of their own after announcing a new, unified command elected in Turkey over the weekend.
Abu Moaz al-Agha, a spokesman for the powerful Gathering of Ansar al-Islam, which includes many Islamist rebel brigades, said, “What we need now is the heavy weapons and we expect to get them after the formation of this.
“The Qataris and the Saudis gave us positive promises. We will see what will happen,” he told Reuters.
He also said that officials from Western countries who attended the meeting in Turkey had not mentioned arming the rebels but talked about “sending aid.”
The fighting in and around Damascus is already the heaviest it has been since the uprising began 21 months ago, descending into a bloody conflict between forces loyal to Assad, a member of the Alawite minority linked to Shiite Islam, and largely Sunni Muslim fighters.
Although the uprising was originally a homegrown rebellion, by February 2012 it was clear that al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists were doing their best to exploit the political turmoil and hijack the revolution.
Assad refuses to call it a civil war, insisting that the opposition is comprised of foreign terrorists from regional countries.
Iran, Syria’s main ally in the Middle East, along with Russia and China have all supported Assad’s stance, while the U.S and its Western allies have condemned his brutal crackdown on the opposition and called for him to resign.
On Sunday, Washington sent its deputy foreign minister and Washington its deputy secretary of state to talks with U.N. peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who said they were aimed at finding a solution based on last June’s Geneva declaration, which called for a transitional government.
A statement after the meeting showed little sign of breakthrough, although they all agreed a political solution was still possible.
Controversy over chemical weapons
The situation could change drastically, however, if Assad does unleash chemical weapons.
In late August, President Obama first threatened military action against Syria if there was evidence that the government was moving its stocks of chemical or biological arms.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reaffirmed the American stance last Thursday, saying,
“The whole world is watching very closely and the president of the United States made it very clear that there will be consequences – there will be consequences if the Assad regime makes a terrible mistake and uses chemical weapons on its own people.”
As his army and its grip on the capital weaken, rebels warn that Assad is becoming more extreme in his fight for survival.
Mattar Ismail, a spokesman for the Ahfad al-Rasul rebel brigade in Damascus, claimed there will be a new surge of violence. “There will be a sudden increase in the regime army’s use of force,” he said. “We will see more destruction and more victims.”
Syrian state-run media SANA, however, said on Monday that the government has sent two letters to the U.N. saying it is concerned that the U.S. may be attempting to frame it for the use of chemical weapons.
The letters, addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and chairman of the Security Council, repeated Damascus’ previous pledge that if it possessed chemical weapons it would not use them.
“The U.S. administration has consistently worked over the past year to launch a campaign of allegations on the possibility that Syria could use chemical weapons during the current crisis,” wrote the Foreign Ministry.
Assad admitted as long ago as January 2009 that his government had chemical weapons, but experts in the U.S. and Europe say the latest concerns may be overblown.
“I’m skeptical about sarin being prepared or artillery shells being filled. I’ve just seen too much in the past with satellite photography making assumptions about chemical weapons, most infamously in Iraq,” said Greg Thielman, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington and an early skeptic of U.S. claims that Iraq had built up a chemical weapons arsenal prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
At the time, Thielmann was acting director for the State Department office responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat. No such weapons were ever found.
“Even if we could see them being filled, how do we know how they intend to use them?” he added. “There’s no threat made by Assad of using them, and we’ve made our threats to a sufficient level that he could expect something pretty nasty if he did.”
Friend or foe?
President Obama on Tuesday said that the United States would formally recognize the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, an umbrella group of opposition factions created last month at a meeting in Qatar.
Obama said that it “is now inclusive enough” to be granted the elevated status, which paves the way for greater U.S. support for the organization.
“Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities,” Obama said in an interview Tuesday with ABC News. “To make sure that they organize themselves effectively, that they are representative of all the parties, that they commit themselves to a political transition that respects women’s rights and minority rights.”
The new coalition has already been recognized by Britain, France, Turkey and several Arab Gulf countries. But several Islamist groups fighting in Syria said they reject it.
One of the strongest jihadist elements is the al-Nusra Front, a direct offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), which was responsible for the deaths of numerous American troops and Iraqi civilians.
“This is just a simple way of returning the favor to our Syrian brothers that fought with us on the lands of Iraq,” one veteran of al-Qaida in Iraq told the New York Times.
On Monday, the Obama administration revealed that it is declaring al-Nusra a terrorist organization. The State Department’s action blocks the group’s assets in the U.S. and bars Americans from doing business with it.
Al-Nusra is thought to have several thousand fighters and has played a major role in several key battles against the regime, including carrying out car and suicide bombings in Damascus.
Recent reports from Syria suggest that it is among the groups gaining ground in places where support for the opposition Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella of rebel fighters that U.S. wants to bolster, is wearing thin.
The group was not invited to the talks in Turkey over the weekend. But isolating al-Nusra could backfire. FSA officials estimate al-Nusra fighters now account for 7.5-9 percent of total rebel forces, and that they are regarded as some of the fiercest front-line troops.
Indeed, fighters led by al-Nusra seized a strategic army base in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on Monday.
One member of the group said he decided to join because he saw how well it planned and fought, and “how determined and professional they are.”
He said the organization’s goal was an Islamic state in Syria ruled by strict Sunni Muslims, and that it would fight any secular government.
“Our mission won’t end after the fall of the regime,” he said.
It appears the U.S. has created a monster in the Middle East that could soon come back to haunt us.