Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Syrian President Bashar Assad, termed by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joel Brinkley as the “world’s most dangerous man,” could use his chemical weapons in Israel, warns IDF’s Number Two general.
Assad would "treat us the same way he treats his own people” of he had the chance to do so, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh said in Jerusalem in a ceremony Monday in memory of fallen soldiers.
Druze Knesset Member Ayoob Kara told Arutz Sheva this week that he received several videos that were taken in Syria and which indicate the use of chemical weapons.
Propaganda from Iran accusing the Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons also indicates that Assad is preparing to do so. Damascus and Tehran frequently accuse the opposition forces, which they term “terrorists,” of being behind murders and bombings carried out by Assad’s police and army.
If either side is proven to have used chemical weapons, the international community would likely intervene with military action, commented DebkaFile analysts.
As the civil war worsens, latest reports are that the city of Homs has been virtually destroyed and that Assad’s loyalists are carrying out large-scale massacres and gang rapes.
If Assad corners himself into a last-ditch stand to survive, he could turn his guns on Israel to divert attention from his domestic crisis with a bid to encourage other Arab countries to make another attempt to annihilate Israel.
The presence of chemical weapons in Syria is assumed even though it has denied that it possesses them. It is only one of seven countries that are non-signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
“Independent assessments indicate that Syrian production could be up to a combined total of a few hundred tons of chemical agent per year," according to Wikipedia. The online source also states, “Syrian chemical weapons production facilities have been identified by Western nonproliferation experts at approximately five sites.”
A 2007 explosion at a Syria arms depot, where 15 Syrians were killed, is believed to have involved a Scud missile fitted with a mustard gas warhead, Jane’s Defense Weekly reported.
