Reuters reports: Mariam Bozan Khalil spent days avoiding Syrian rebel militiamen on the road to Iraq, only to be forced to finish her journey on foot through sun-scorched hills.

She is one of more than 40,000 Syrians who have escaped to Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region in the past 10 days. The exodus is one of the biggest cross-border migrations since what is now a civil war between the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels trying to overthrow him started more than two years ago.

The mainly Kurdish refugees are fleeing groups of fighters that have been seizing control of villages over the border, Khalil said, at a reception camp in the Iraqi frontier village of Suhilla, around 400km (250 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

“We don’t know them. They just come, take power and give themselves a name,” she said, as her 18-month-old son slept spread-eagled on a cloth in front of her. “We don’t know who we are supposed to support. The people, we are just left to be trampled underfoot,” the 28-year-old Kurd said.

The sudden influx of Syrian refugees has brought Iraq’s prosperous and well-armed northern region closer to the conflict which has already killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions. The leader of the autonomous region has promised to protect Kurds over the border from attacks.

Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid write: The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted. [Continue reading…]

The National reports: United Nations weapons inspectors will today examine the site of a chemical weapons attack in Damascus that killed hundreds, as the first signs of finger-pointing inside the Assad regime began to emerge.

The Syrian government agreed yesterday to cease hostilities in the area while the team goes in and the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said inspectors were “preparing to conduct on-site fact-finding activities” on the outskirts of the capital.

The attack on Wednesday has galvanised international calls for action against the government of President Bashar Al Assad. Rebels say as many as 1,300 people were killed. One aid agency says thousands were affected and 355 died.

Amid universal acceptance that a chemical nerve agent has been used but disagreement over who used it, there were indications from Damascus that some of the army officers involved had tried to distance themselves from what happened, and insisted they were not told the rockets they were firing were loaded with toxins.

“We have heard from people close to the regime that the chemical missiles were handed out a few hours before the attacks,” said a source from a well-connected family, who has contacts with both the opposition and regime loyalists.

“They didn’t come from the ministry of defence but from air force intelligence, under orders from Hafez Maklouf . The army officers are saying they did not know there were chemical weapons. Even some of the people transporting them are saying they had no idea what was in the rockets – they thought they were conventional explosives.”

Hafez Maklouf, Mr Al Assad’s cousin, commands Syria’s air force intelligence, the most feared of all its secret police branches. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Moving a step closer to possible American military action in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said on Sunday that there was “very little doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians last week and that a Syrian promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was “too late to be credible.”

The official, in a carefully worded written statement, said that “based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the U.S. intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident.”

The statement, released on Sunday morning on the condition that the official not be named, reflected a marked shift in tone after President Obama’s meeting at the White House on Saturday with his national security team, during which advisers discussed options for military action.

The president, who warned a year ago that the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces would be a “red line,” has faced criticism from Congressional Republicans and others for failing to respond more forcefully to evidence of earlier, smaller-scale chemical attacks. Mr. Obama, who inherited two costly wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — has been extremely reluctant to commit American military forces, even in the form of missile strikes, to another tangled conflict in the Middle East.

But on Sunday, the White House seemed to take a harder line, dismissing the Syrian promise of possible access by United Nations inspectors. That raised at least the possibility that a strike on Syrian targets would come soon, perhaps using cruise missiles fired from ships off shore.

Early Sunday, the White House said Syrian officials had refused to let the inspectors see the site of the attack. But Syrian television subsequently reported that there was an agreement to allow access beginning on Monday. The administration official who released the statement said the offer, even if sincere, might be meaningless because of the time that had already passed since the attack.

“The evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime’s persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days,” the official said.

The official, however, did not suggest that Mr. Obama had decided to take action. “We are continuing to assess the facts so the president can make an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons,” the official said.

But by labeling as “indiscriminate” the attack on Wednesday in a Damascus suburb, which reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, the official suggested that the United States viewed the latest assault as different from the smaller suspected chemical attacks that had not provoked American military action. [Continue reading…]

The Hill: If the U.S. takes military action against Syria, it will be focused on preventing President Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons and not on regime change, a senior Democrat said Sunday.

“This is not designed to bring the regime down,” House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Schiff, who has been a staunch opponent of American action in Syria, added that Congress would only back a limited U.S. mission to target Syria’s chemical weapons.

Anything further than that, would face harsh opposition on Capitol Hill, Schiff said.

In a separate appearance on Fox News, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he believed U.S. military action would take place soon and would be limited to surgical missile strikes inside the country.

U.S. warships, armed with long-range cruise missiles, are already on station off the coast of Syria.

Missile strikes, according to Schiff, would not be harsh enough to completely destabilize the regime, but “it would be very punishing” to Assad’s ability to carry out chemical weapon attacks.

Reuters reports: Days after a suspected poison gas attack killed hundreds of people in crop-growing suburbs, residents of the Syrian capital say they are afraid their food and water supplies may be contaminated.

Western countries believe President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out the worst chemical weapons attack since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Syria’s government denies any role in the deaths and blames rebels.

Whoever is to blame, grandmother Hana said her three daughters were now fretting about what to feed their children.

“They keep calling me throughout the day, and they are frantic. They ask: ‘Mum, what about the watermelon? Does it absorb the chemicals? What about the milk?’ I try to calm them down, but I’m very worried myself. What if it takes years for any effects to show up in the children?” she said.

The poison gas hit the Ghouta area, where acres upon acres of agricultural land supply the capital of 3 million people with fresh vegetables, meat and dairy.

“I hope God will protect us. Because I would really rather plant my own tomatoes and vegetables, but how will they grow in my third floor apartment? I don’t even have a balcony,” said Um Hassan, another grandmother.

She it was the first time she was seriously worried about food contamination since the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq made Syrians fear contamination of imported food.

The Syrian authorities have yet to respond with any clarity about whether people need to take special precautions to protect themselves from possible contamination.

It is not yet clear what poison or mixture of poisons were responsible for the killings.

Sarin, which the United States and France believe was used in previous, smaller incidents in Syria, mixes with water. People can be exposed to it by touching or drinking contaminated water, according to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People can also be exposed by eating contaminated food.

“Do we have to keep our windows closed? How long does the poison stay in the air? I hear different things from people,” said 40-year-old man who works as a physical therapist and lives less than a 15-minute drive from one attack.

“Do we have to worry now about leaving the city? Are we considered contagious?” he said.

AFP reports: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday there was “no doubt” the Damascus regime was behind a suspected chemical weapons attack near the capital last week.

“The indications are totally convergent on the scale of the massacre and the overwhelming responsibility of the regime… As far as we are concerned, there is no doubt concerning the substance of the facts and their origin,” Fabius told a Jerusalem press conference.

Asked about the Syrian regime’s decision on Sunday to grant UN inspectors permission to inspect the sites of the suspected chemical strikes, Fabius replied that “this request was already made several days ago”.

“The site has been bombed since,” he said.

The Los Angeles Times reports: The Syrian government agreed Sunday to allow United Nations inspectors to visit the sites of suspected chemical-weapon attacks outside Damascus, the official Syrian news agency said.

Syrian officials and the U.N. “have agreed to a mutual understanding that enters into force immediately allowing the U.N. inspection team to investigate” the sites of the recent alleged attacks, the state media outlet said in a statement.

The reported accord comes as U.S. officials were said to be preparing for a possible military strike on Syria in retaliation for the government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. President Obama met with his top security advisers this weekend about the Syria crisis.

A 20-member contingent of U.N. inspectors is already on the ground in Damascus, but the team’s official mandate was limited to looking into three previous allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria. Sunday’s agreement would seem to open the way for the experts to visit several areas near the capital where chemical weapons allegedly struck last week.

Médecins Sans Frontières: Three hospitals in Syria’s Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported to MSF that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Of those patients, 355 reportedly died.

Since 2012, MSF has built a strong and reliable collaboration with medical networks, hospitals and medical points in the Damascus governorate, and has been providing them with drugs, medical equipment and technical support. Due to significant security risks, MSF staff members have not been able to access the facilities.

“Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress,” said Dr. Bart Janssens, MSF director of operations.

Patients were treated using MSF-supplied atropine, a drug used to treat neurotoxic symptoms. MSF is now trying to replenish the facilities’ empty stocks and provide additional medical supplies and guidance.

“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr. Janssens. “However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events—characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers—strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent. This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons.” [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.

About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.

More Americans would back intervention if it is established that chemical weapons have been used, but even that support has dipped in recent days – just as Syria’s civil war has escalated and the images of hundreds of civilians allegedly killed by chemicals appeared on television screens and the Internet.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken August 19-23, found that 25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not.

Taken together, the polls suggest that so far, the growing crisis in Syria, and the emotionally wrenching pictures from an alleged chemical attack in a Damascus suburb this week, may actually be hardening many Americans’ resolve not to get involved in another conflict in the Middle East.

Reuters reports: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday acknowledged for the first time chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.

Rouhani stopped short of saying who had used the arms – Tehran has previously accused Syrian rebels of being behind what it called suspected chemical attacks.

He also did not mention the international furore around Syrian opposition reports that forces loyal to the Damascus government killed as many as 1,000 civilians with poison gas in suburbs of Damascus on Wednesday.

“Many of the innocent people of Syria have been injured and martyred by chemical agents and this is unfortunate,” recently elected Rouhani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“We completely and strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons,” he said, according to the agency.

“The Islamic Republic gives notice to the international community to use all its might to prevent the use of these weapons anywhere in the world, especially in Syria,” he added, according to the Mehr news agency.

The Associated Press reports: President Barack Obama on Friday played down the prospect of speedy U.S. intervention in Syria, stressing the difficulty of ordering military action against the Assad government without a strong international coalition and a legal mandate from the United Nations.

While his administration weighed military responses to this week’s claims of a large-scale chemical weapons attack near Damascus, Obama spoke as cautiously as ever about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida.

He made no mention of the “red line” of chemical weapons use which he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and which U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.

“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

The Guardian reports: Expert opinion is hardening behind attributing the deaths on Wednesday of hundreds of people in Damascus to a nerve agent such as sarin, with regional and western governments expecting to receive smuggled biological samples from the site in the coming days.

Chemical weapons specialists, who have studied footage showing the dead and dying victims of the attack, said several symptoms offered strong evidence that a nerve agent was used; it would be the worst such attack anywhere in the world in the past 25 years.

Stefan Mogl, a Swiss chemical weapons expert and former arms inspector, said: “There’s a significant number of videos of children’s faces and of adults who seem to have been exposed, that show typical symptoms of acetylcholinesterase inhibition poisoning, which coincides with a nerve agent.”

Mogl told the Guardian it was very likely the agent used was sarin. “The significance is, it’s not a single case. One person with constricting of the pupils, or with excessive salivation, or with spasms, or gasping for air, one single incident is not very significant, but … I came to the conclusion that there is a likelihood of nerve agent poisoning and this should be thoroughly investigated. You see children dying, people with very severe effects. I’ve seen a lot of people with uncontrolled muscle movement.”

Alastair Hay, another former weapons expert, who investigated the aftermath of the Halabja attack, when up to 5,000 people were gassed in Iraqi Kurdistan by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1988, said: “I’m struck by the appearance of the victims and the absence of any signs of trauma. This suggests some powerful asphyxiant. Many of the victims have individual signs suggestive of exposure to an organophosphate agent. Nasal and lung secretions are very evident in many of the victims. These are just some of the signs consistent with [such] exposure.” [Continue reading…]