Syrian regime troops have fired missiles with chemical weapons at opponents, crossing President Barack Obama’s red line a “long time ago,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been quoted as saying.

“It is clear that the regime has used chemical weapons and missiles. They used about 200 missiles, according to our intelligence,” Erdogan said in a transcript of the interview with the American television news outlet NBC News in Istanbul, issued on Thursday.

The Turkish leader did not make clear whether Turkey believed that all 200 missiles carried chemical weapons and said that his government had not determined whether sarin gas was used.

“There are different sizes missiles. And then there are deaths caused by these missiles. And there are burns, you know, serious burns and chemical reactions,” Erdogan told the network when asked what evidence Turkey had.

“And there are patients who are brought to our hospitals who were wounded by these chemical weapons.”

Erdogan told NBC Turkey that you could see who was affected by chemical missiles by their burns, vowing to share intelligence with the United Nations Security Council.

Assad’s forces and opposing rebels have accused each other of using chemical weapons.

Erdogan told NBC he rejected the idea that Assad’s opponents has used such weapons because they lacked access to them.

Turkey’s state-run Anatolian news agency said earlier on Thursday that the country 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.

- Reuters - 05/09/2013

courtesy @Psypherize

09/12/12

Photo Credit: zaman-alwsl.net

The Syrian news website zaman-alwsl.net conducted an interview with a defecting Major in the Chemical Warfare Corp of the Syrian army, who revealed the following:

The Syrian army has already used a small amount of chemical weapons in a battle near Baba Amr.

In November large arsenals of chemical weapons was transfer from storage facilities on Mount Qassioun near Damascus, which is under the control of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence, to several airports in Syria, in order to load them onto planes for bombing rebel targets.

The Aldemir military airport, on the otskirts of Damascus, is designated as the main base of operations from which aerial bombing with chemical weapons will be carried out.

A large part of Syria’s chemical weapons has been removed from storage at Mount Qassioun and transferred by civilian cars chauffeured from Hezbollah soldiers to Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

The Syrian army is being aided by Iranian and North Korean experts in treatment and usage of its chemical weapons.

Over the past month and a half the Syrian army has been testing its chemical weapons in the area of Al Muslemia, east of Aleppo, under the guidance of Iranian experts.

09/12/12

Israel has deployed special forces units in Syria to track the regime’s movement of chemical weapons amid growing international fears that the government might use its stockpile against rebels, British daily The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

“For years we’ve known the exact location of Syria’s chemical and biological munitions,” an Israeli source told the paper.

“But in the past week we’ve got signs that munitions have been moved to new locations.”

The paper added that operation “is part of a secret war to trail Syria’s non-conventional armaments and sabotage their development.”

Syria warned on Saturday that rebels could use chemical weapons in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, but insisted the regime will never unleash such arms on its own people.

However, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there was evidence the Damascus government could actually employ chemical weapons stocks in the conflict that a rights group says has killed at least 42,000 people in nearly 21 months.

Global concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles have grown after US officials privately said this week that the regime had begun mixing precursor chemicals that could be used for the lethal nerve agent sarin.

Some media reports said the substance had been loaded into bombs for warplanes.

-NOW Lebanon

09/12/12

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT |

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels backed by radical Islamists captured a northern regimental command center of President Bashar al-Assad’s army, activists said on Sunday, as Russia dismissed speculation that it is preparing for its ally’s possible exit from power.

Assad’s forces hammered rebel units on the outskirts of Damascus as they tried to drive back opposition fighters rebels seeking to advance toward the embattled leader’s seat of power.

Rebels have made a series of advances in recent weeks, partly due to help from radicals such as Jabhat al-Nusra, a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq which has been excluded from a newly-formed rebel military command.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jabhat al-Nusra, which has called for the creation of an Islamic state in Syria, had participated in capturing the command center of the army’s 111th regiment in the north of the country. It said around five soldiers were captured, while the commanding officer and some 140 of his men fled to another army site nearby.

Russia, Syria’s main arms supplier, dismissed suggestions from observers that its support for Assad might be softening.

“We are not holding any talks on the fate of Assad,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. “All attempts to present the situation differently are rather shady,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Washington and its NATO allies, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, are pressing for Assad’s departure to end the conflict in Syria, which has taken more than 40,000 lives.

Russia and China have blocked U.N. resolutions against Assad, saying they oppose foreign intervention in the conflict.

However, Western officials have recently cited intelligence reports that Assad may turn to chemical weapons. “We have seen enough evidence to know that they need a warning and they have received a warning and I hope they heed that,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday.

Syria has repeatedly denied the charges and accused the West of creating pretexts for foreign intervention.

RADICALS ON THE RISE

Rebels have seized several military bases in recent weeks, although some activists on the ground say there is no sign they are on the verge of toppling Assad.

The rebels’ capture of the regimental command center in the Sheikh Suleiman region of Aleppo province, however, shows growing cooperation and even allegiance to radical Islamists who have proven to be some of the most effective fighters.

It is unclear how much Jabhat al-Nusra’s exclusion from the newly-formed rebel military command in Syria, an effort backed by Western, Turkish and Arab security officials, will affect efforts to unify rebel ranks and increase financial support.

Led by Brigadier Selim Idris, the new command structure itself is also Islamist-dominated, though it has the backing of many Western states which have expressed reluctance to support the rebels due to the presence of radicals.

Radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra are small compared with other factions but their influence has grown in recent months, partly due to their successful operations. Some residents and rebels also believe the hardliners are more disciplined than some rebels who have been accused of looting and kidnapping.

ROAD TO DAMASCUS?

Damascus has become a focal point of battles over the past week, as rebels effectively shut the international airport by clashing with Assad’s forces there. Foreign flights have been suspended and residents say the airport road is closed.

Rebels who have dubbed their campaign “Operation Opening the Road to Damascus”, uploaded video on Sunday that showed heavy gunbattles and explosions rocking several rural towns around the capital. The video also showed rebels firing a fully functioning tank which they had captured from the army.

But there is no clear winner yet in a battle where neither side seems to have advanced. The Syrian army has claimed many successes around the capital, airing footage on state television of soldiers raiding parts of the rebel stronghold of Deraya.

“Our noble forces in Deraya have destroyed some of the terrorist dens used by al Qaeda terrorists to store weapons and other criminal tools,” said a report on Syria TV, which usually refers to rebels as terrorists. “Many terrorists were killed.”

Syrian soldiers also freed an Iranian diplomat captured on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday, according to Iran’s state-run Arabic news channel Al-Alam. Majeed Adeli, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, had been kidnapped by rebels in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb.

Rebels have been targeting Iranians in Syria, many of whom it accuses of belonging to Iranian security forces. Iran has been Assad’s main bankroller and backer in the region. Rebels are also holding 48 Iranians which Tehran says were pilgrims.

09/12/12

Note: This information was translated using Google translate!

Was rated Sarin (Sarin) that weapons of mass destruction in the record of the United Nations No. 687.

A nerve agents known, the most toxic and rapidly acting, which is similar to certain types of pesticides (insecticides) named compounds organophosphate in the way they work and the types of adverse effects caused by, but the nerve agents far more effective than pesticides organophosphate.

Chemical formula: C4H10FO2P

Density: 1.0887 g / cm ³ in the degree of 25 ° C and 1.102 g / cm ³ in the degree of 20 ° C

Melting point: -56 ° C, 217 K, -69 ° F

Boiling point: 158 ° C, 431 K, 316 ° F

To learn more about the properties sarin Click here
 Effect of sarin:

Like all nerve agents, shows the effect of sarin by preventing a chemical that is a “off switch” for glands and muscles to function properly … and without the “key off” the glands and muscle stimulant permanently, may lead to Ajhadha not return able to continue to strengthen breathing function. Sarin is the most nerve agents volatile, which means that it can evaporate easily and quickly from a liquid to a vapor and spread into the environment, and can be exposed to people of steam even if not exposed to sarin in the liquid form, and because it evaporates so quickly, a sarin immediate danger but short term.

The extent of poisoning caused by sarin on the amount of sarin, which exposed his person, and how it happens exposure, and the length of time of exposure. Symptoms will appear within a few seconds after exposure to sarin when it is in the form of vapor, and during a period ranging between a few minutes to 18 hours after exposure to the liquid state.
How exposure to sarin

People can be exposed to sarin in a number of ways:

- Following release of sarin into the air, can be exposed persons through the skin or eyes … can be exposure as well as through breathing air containing sarin.

- Including the sarin mixes easily with water, can be used to poison water … after release sarin water, can be exposed persons by touching or drinking water containing sarin.

- Following contamination of food with sarin, can be exposed persons by eating contaminated food.

- If a person’s sarin vapor has clothing can release sarin for about 30 minutes after this exposure, which could lead to exposure of other people.

- As a result of the fact that sarin breaks down slowly in the body the persons who may suffer repeated exposure to sarin more harmful health effects.

- Due to the fact that sarin vapor is heavier than air, it will sink to low-lying areas and pose a greater threat exposure there.

Symptoms of sarin poisoning

Note: Since the sarin has no odor people may not know that they had been subjected to him.

People who were exposed to low or moderate dose of sarin by breathing contaminated air, eating contaminated food, drinking contaminated water, or touching surfaces contaminated with sarin may exhibit some or all of the following symptoms during a period ranging between a few seconds to hours of exposure:

- Runny nose

- Watery eyes

- Pupils shrunken and slim

- Pain in the eye

- Blurred vision

- Increase the secretion of saliva and / or increased sweating

- Cough

- Tightness in the chest

- Rapid breathing

- Diarrhea

- Pee-plus

- Confusion

- Roundabout

- Weak

- Headache

- Nausea, vomiting and / or abdominal pain

- Heartbeat slow or fast

- Low blood pressure or high

And even a small drop of sarin on the skin can cause sweating and muscle convulsions in place skin contact with sarin.

Exposure to high doses of sarin in any way may result in adverse health effects following:

- Loss of consciousness (coma)

- Convulsions

- Paralysis

- Respiratory failure, is likely to lead to death.

The symmetry of healing after exposure to sarin possible with treatment, but should be used antidote available quickly in order to be effective, and therefore the best thing to do is avoid exposure to sarin.
Prevention measures

Leave the area where the sarin was released immediately and access to a place where clean air, and Jump to place fresh air available to be highly effective in reducing the risk of death as a result of exposure to sarin vapor.

- If the sarin release was outdoors, move away from the area where the sarin was released. Go to the top as possible because sarin is heavier than air and will settle in low-lying areas.

- If sarin is released in an enclosed space (a building, for example), get out of the building immediately.

If people think they may have been exposed to sarin, they should remove their clothes, wash their bodies fully quickly with soap and water, and seek medical care as soon as possible.

- Dressing and disposal:

Quickly take off clothing that has liquid sarin. Any clothing that is bestowed by passing the head through a hole head (Sweaters / T-shirt) should be cut off the body instead of pulled over the head. If you have enough, you have to put clothes in a plastic bag, and then close the first plastic bag tightly and put it in a second plastic bag tightly closed as well. Dressing and disposed of in this way will help protect people from any chemicals that might be on their clothes If clothes were placed in plastic bags.

Do not touch the plastic bags if you are helping other people remove their clothing and try to avoid touching any contaminated parts, and remove the clothing as quickly as possible.

- Washing of the body:

As soon as possible, wash your skin and get rid of any liquid sarin using large amounts of soap and water. Washing with soap and water will help protect people from any chemicals stuck their bodies. You Rinse eyes with plain water for 10 to 15 minutes if they are burning them or if the blurry vision.

- If sarin has been swallowed, do not induce vomiting or give fluids to drink (there are some articles about giving the victim tablets of charcoal with a glass of water to put toxic temporarily pending gastric lavage).

- Seek medical attention immediately.
Antidote against sarin

There are articles known instances as an antidote against the nervous system, including the Working sarin, two atropine (Atropine) and pralidoxime chloride (Pralidoxime chloride), but must give them by a doctor

09/12/12

#Syria, Information on Sarin Gas!!!!

Facts and facts about gas serine and method of treatment
Serine is a liquid gas has no color
A chemical nerve agent
And is one of the most dangerous toxic substances known in chemical warfare
It does not smell gas or tasteless
Exposure to serine gas leads to death within moments
And dermal exposure to this gas may be lethal

Ways the spread of the gas
Can spread air spray liquid or vapor can also contaminate water, food and agricultural products

This gas can be inhaled by humans or that breathe

Symptoms of this gas
Eye exposure so gas will happen redness in the eyes and pain in and around the eye, blurred vision and nausea reflex

Breathing this gas causes loss of consciousness and trembling with the parties and heart attacks
And concentration of liquids in the bronchi and then stopped breathing and death

09/12/12

#Syria, Toxic materials used in the new East Ghouta
The aircraft system offender threw white toxic substances spread through moments in the skies of the region

09/12/12

Translation provided by the Syrian Assistance Team!

#Syria, some sort of special material in barrel dropped with parachute on Douma city, they tried to put out the fire with sand, special powder, water but it keeps burning underground

09/12/12

08/12/12

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
Amman

(Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have chosen a former officer to head a new Islamist-dominated command, in a Western-backed effort to put the opposition’s house in order as President Bashar al-Assad’s army takes hits that could usher his downfall.

In Turkey, a newly formed joint command of Syrian rebel groups has chosen Brigadier Selim Idris, one of hundreds of officers who have defected from Assad’s army, as its head, opposition sources said on Saturday.

Idris, whose home province of Homs has been at the forefront of the Sunni Muslim-led uprising, was elected by 30 military and civilian members of the joint military command after talks attended by Western and Arab security officials in the Turkish city of Antalya.

The unified command includes many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Salafists, who follow a puritanical interpretation of Islam. It excludes the most senior officers who have defected from Assad’s military.

On the Damascus battlefront, Assad’s forces used multiple rocket launchers on Saturday against several suburbs that have fallen to rebels who have fought their way to the edge of the city’s international airport, where foreign carriers have suspended all flights.

Rebels, who have overrun several army bases near Damascus over the last month, appeared to be holding their ground, encircling a main military base in the northeastern suburb of Harasta, known as “idarat al markabat”, near the main highway to Aleppo, according to opposition campaigners.

“The fighters made slight progress today. They captured a weapons depot and got to a tank repair facility in the base, but all 20 tanks inside were inoperational,” said Abu Ghazi, a rebel who was speaking from the area.

“The weather cleared and MiG fighters hit rebel positions around the base. Rocket launchers did not stop for the last three days. The site is crucial for the regime,” he added.

BOMBARDMENT NEAR AIRPORT

Heavy army bombardment was also reported on the town of Harran al-Awamid near the airport, which is 20 kilometers southeast of Damascus, and on the suburb of Hajar al-Aswad, at the southern entrance of the capital, which has been at the forefront of the Sunni-led revolt against Assad.

Western officials have begun speaking about faster change on the ground in a conflict that is becoming increasingly sectarian and deepening the Shi’ite-Sunni fault lines in the Middle East, a hallmark of politics in the region since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Like his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad who ruthlessly put down an Islamist challenge, the younger Assad is portraying himself as the only hope for survival of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that has dominated power in majority Sunni Syria since the 1960s.

Moscow, Assad’s strongest foreign backer, and Washington, which says it supplies only “non-lethal” aid to the rebels, sounded downbeat about the prospects of a diplomatic push to end the conflict after talks this week.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency said Assad’s government is its final stages and will be unable to survive as more parts of the country slip from his control.

“Armed rebels are coordinating better, which is making their fight against Assad more effective,” Gerhard Schindler told the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung newspaper, in an interview made public on Saturday.

“Assad’s regime will not survive. “Evidence is mounting that the regime in Damascus is now in its final phase,” Schindler said

Setbacks for the Alawite-led military, whose core units are stationed in Damascus and on hill tops surrounding the capital, have raised Western concerns that the ruling elite may use chemical weapons to turn the tide of the war.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council published by official state media, the Syrian foreign ministry said “Syria will not use chemical weapons under any circumstances”.

“We are seriously afraid that some countries that support terrorism would supply chemical weapons to the terrorist armed groups and claim that the Syrian government is the one that is using them,” the letter said.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Stephen Powell)

08/12/12

#Syria, Ugarit Bunche Idlib, the shelling of the city believed to be phosphorous bombs

08/12/12

Translation provided by Syrian Assistance Team

Georges Sabra
Lately we got information that the regime could use chemical weapons! We warn the world of these risks, of the disaster that could occur if the criminal regime uses these chemicals! We appeal to the UN and the Big World Powers!  The regime is determined to use mass destruction weapons and any weapons to destroy the Syrian people. This regime has already committed genocide, crimes  against humanity and war crimes in Hama, Aleppo, Tadmur, Jesr el Shghour.  In the 80th, Houla , Daraya, Treymsse, Homs and Daraa and most of the cities and towns of Syria in the last months. This regime killed more than 40000 in the 80th and in the past months, more than this number! We believe that nothing will  stop this regime to commit many more crimes, especially now that it is close to its end, except if it is faced by a strict and serious International position! We ask the  world to move immediately to prevent this regime from using chemical weapons, not after it uses them but before to prevent a disaster on Syria and its people!

08/12/12

Global concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles grew after U.S. officials this week privately said the regime had begun mixing precursor chemicals that could be used for the lethal nerve agent sarin. (AFP)

By Al Arabiya With Agencies

The Syrian foreign ministry on Sunday warned that opposition fighters could use chemical weapons, following international threats of military intervention if President Bashar al-Assad uses the WMDs.

“Terrorist groups may resort to using chemical weapons against the Syrian people… after having gained control of a toxic chlorine factory” east of Aleppo, the foreign ministry said, using the government term for rebel groups.

It added that Damascus would never use such weapons against its own people.

Syria “is defending its people against terrorism, which is supported by known countries, with the United States at the forefront,” the ministry said.

Global concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles grew after U.S. officials this week privately said the regime had begun mixing precursor chemicals that could be used for the lethal nerve agent sarin.

Some media reports said that the substance had been loaded into bombs for warplanes.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, however, said there was evidence the Damascus government could actually employ chemical weapons stocks in the conflict which a rights group says has killed at least 42,000 people in nearly 21 months.

Hague said on Saturday there was evidence Syrian government forces could use chemical weapons against the insurgency.

“We are extremely concerned about the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and we are also concerned about evidence during the last couple of weeks that the regime could use them,” he told reporters in Manama on the sidelines of a security conference.

Hague said Britain had joined the United States in delivering a strong message to Assad’s government and that the global community had “contingency plans concerning chemical weapons but will not disclose them.”

He cited several “dangerous scenarios,” including their “use by the regime” or falling into the hands “of other people.”

Washington has said the use of chemical weapons would be a red line but that it fears rebel battlefield advances could prompt the regime to use them, or that stocks could fall into the hands of groups hostile to the U.S. and its allies.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said on Friday said it would be an “outrageous crime” if the regime used chemical weapons against the revolt.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the global chemical weapons watchdog, asked Damascus to sign up to a convention banning their use, citing “serious concerns” that for the first time in the agreement’s history they might be used.

The opposition Syrian National Council said even neighboring countries would not be spared if such weapons were used.

“We ask the countries of the world to act before disaster hits, not after,” SNC chief George Sabras said.

“The Syrian people will neither forget nor forgive anyone who orders the use of weapons of mass destruction, or anyone who is complicit in the crime, or anyone who moves only after the crime is committed.”

Syria’s new opposition coalition, meanwhile, said it will announce the creation of a military council before a Friends of Syria meeting next week, to unify insurgent ranks.

In mid-November, opposition factions agreed to establish the National Coalition and bring together rebel forces under a supreme military council.

“The council will be exclusively responsible for receiving military aid which we obtain” from outside Syria, council Secretary General Mustafa Sabbagh told AFP.

On the ground, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least four fighters killed as troops battling rebels near Damascus bombarded opposition strongholds in the south of the city and on its northeastern outskirts.

For several days, the army has pounded rebel strongholds on the capital’s outskirts, raising fears of a looming ground assault.

Thirty-one of the 72 people killed nationwide on Friday died in the Damascus region, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a countrywide network of activists and medics when compiling its tolls.

08/12/12

#Syria, #FSA seize trucks contains chemical protection materials transported at #Damascus airport road