Chemical Weapons Use in Syria.

Yesterday (21/8/13) reports began to emerge of a chemical weapon believed to be Sarin gas being used in a suburb of Syria's capital Damascus. Independent estimates put the death toll at around 600. However displaying their usual relationship with the truth the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) claim that more that 1300 people were killed. Either way the incident has succeeded in propelling Syria to the top of the news agenda across the world for where it has been largely absent for the last couple of months.

The reason for this absence is that as the conflict has continued the mask has started to slip and it has become more difficult to get the facts to fit the western propaganda line. For example it is now clear to all involved that what is going on is not a popular uprising against an unpopular dictator. Instead it is a war being fought between effectively an invasion force made up of foreign irregular troops and the Syrian army. Most civilians in Syria have now worked this out for themselves and are fleeing the country in vast numbers. Secondly since Hezbollah who have great experience in this type of urban guerrilla warfare gained during Lebanon's 15 year civilian war the tide of the conflict has very much turned against the SQIA. The past few months the Syrian government has retaken strategic towns from Al-Qusayr up to Aleppo. As a result the SQIA are now pinned down in a small, rural area of the north-east of the country where they have been reduced to attempts to ethnically or more accurately religiously cleanse the territory they hold. This cleansing has recently triggered a mass exodus of refugees from north-eastern Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan. The only thing that is stopping the Syrian government moving north to end this ethnic cleansing is a small pocket of SQIA resistance in the Damascus suburb where yesterday's chemical weapon attack is alleged to have taken place.

Therefore it seems quite clear that the SQIA have attacked themselves with chemical weapons in a last gasp effort to avoid defeat. Coming almost a year to the day that US President Obama declared the use of chemical weapons in Syria to be a "red line" this incident obviously puts huge pressure on him to intervene on the side of the SQIA. Also the attack came on the day that European Union (EU) Foreign Ministers were holding an emergency meeting to discuss Egypt. Throughout the recent upheaval in Egypt nations led by the UK have been trying to use that situation as a way to discuss Syria specifically the near universal but unstated ban on EU nations supplying the SQIA with weapons. Obviously diplomacy is very delicately poised at the moment but the fact that the EU meeting ended with a decision to ban weapon imports to Egypt while leaving financial support untouched does not immediately sound like good news for the SQIA.

In the more immediate term the attack seems intended to put pressure on the United Nations to demand that its inspection team that arrived in Syria two days before the attack to assess previous alleged uses of chemical weapons be allowed to inspect to the Damascus suburb where this latest attack has taken place. That suburb is currently the focus of a concerted effort by the Syrian army to force the SQIA out using conventional weapons. In order to the UN team to investigate this latest incident some sort of ceasefire will have to be negotiated taking the pressure off the SQIA allowing them to hold onto their only stronghold in the south of Syria. The UN Security Council (UNSC) met in an emergency closed door session yesterday but requested rather than demanded that it's inspection team be given access to the affected area.

(Originally Posted) 10:20 on 22/8/13.