News Analysis: US, Western allies seem securing scenarios for intervention in Syria

DAMASCUS (Xinhua) - Several new developments in Syria have deepened the conviction that Washington and its Western allies have prepared scenarios to justify their positions if they decide to intervene in Syria, even though official rhetoric refers otherwise.

SYRIA'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Since last year, the Untied States and several European countries have floated fears of Syria's chemical weapons "falling into the wrong hands" if the Syrian administration falls. Israel also said it had plans to intervene to secure those arsenals in case of a "regime collapse."

While Washington said the Syrian administration's use of chemical weapons would be "a red line" to trigger military intervention, Damascus repeatedly stressed "even if we have such weapons we will not use them," but warned that the rebels might obtain chemical bombs and use it against civilians to frame the Syrian army and draw in foreign military actions.

Last month, the Syrian government accused the rebels of firing a rocket stuffed with chemical materials at the pro-government town of Khan al-Asal in the northern province of Aleppo. The attack led to the death of at least 26 people, 11 of whom were army personnel, as the rocket landed near a military outpost.

Syria has urged the UN to send a "technical team" to investigate the bombed site, but the UN said it wanted an expanded probe on several areas, not only Khan al-Asal. Damascus dismissed the expanded probe as an attempt to infringe upon the Syrian sovereignty and said it ran counter to its original request.

But western media now splash a thick black headline reading: " British scientists find evidence of Syrian chemical attack."

A secret British operation has smuggled out a soil sample which provides the first forensic evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Britain's The Times newspaper said Saturday.

It said the British scientists working at the Ministry of Defense's research facility at Porton Down, Wiltshere, found traces of "some kind of chemical weapon" after performing tests.

If proven the weapons were used by the government forces, the new tests would add to growing pressure for the West to intervene or at least begin arming the Syrian rebels, the British Telegraph said Saturday.

Moreover, the rebel Free Syrian Army has fanned the flames, alleging on Saturday that the Syrian army would use the chemical weapons in its fight against the rebels to push them away from the surrounding suburbs of the capital.

Mohammad Refai, a political analyst, backed the theory of the Syrian government that the western-backed rebels had planned and carried out attacks using chemical weapons in Syria because "this is the very scenario that the Obama administration said represented its 'red line' on military intervention in Syria."

"It's not in the interest of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons in fighting rebels because the results would play in the hands of the rebels," he told Xinhua.

AL-Qaeda DECLARATION OF ISLAMIC STATE IN SYRIA

Another element that spiked fears of another "war on terrorism" in the region was the recent declaration by the Iraqi wing of al-Qaeda that the al-Nusra Front radical group in Syria was part of the global terror network.

The declaration, made on Tuesday by Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, came just two days after al-Qaeda's central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urged the unification of jihad in Syria, and was followed by al-Nusra's leader's promise of allegiance.

The Syrian government has consistently warned that al-Qaeda had been making use of the Syrian crisis and that it was behind the explosions and disturbances nationwide.

The al-Qaeda declaration came also one day ahead of the Group of Eight nations' meeting, when the exiled Syrian opposition called on the sidelines of the meeting for lethal aid but were not promised anything.

Experts believe that the declaration's timing was meant to coincide with talks of the chemical weapons' usage to nurture the West's fears of the expanding role of al-Qaeda in the country, which would add another reason for possible intervention under the title of "fighting terrorism."

TARGETING SYRIA'S AIRPORTS, AIRFIELDS

Over the past year, the armed rebels in Syria backed with al- Nusra Front have deliberately attacked several airbases across the country. They also tried to attack civilian airports in the capital Damascus and Aleppo.

The rebels' tactic was seen as a bid to paralyze the Syrian air force and prevent it from carrying out strikes against rebels' strongholds nationwide.

Amin Hutait, a retired Lebanese brigadier and military expert, said recently that the rebels had even attacked airbases which were far from the conflict zones, pointing out that the strategy of targeting military airfields aimed to weaken the Syrian air force ability to respond to any foreign aggression.

What buoyed Hutait's idea was the Israeli airstrike that targeted a military research center at the Jumraya suburb of Damascus in January.

At the time, Syria's Defense Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij said the Israeli raid rendered help to the rebels who were trying to destroy the facility for no avail.

The minister said the "armed terrorist groups" had been recently targeting Syria's air-defense systems on the behest of Israel in order to render those systems out of service.

He said the targeting of air defense systems had pushed the Syrian leadership to bring those systems close together to protect them.

On Thursday, the CNN cited a senior US military official as saying that "under pressure from Democrats and Republicans, the Joint Staff of the Pentagon and the US Central Command have updated potential military options for intervention in Syria that could see American forces - if ordered - doing everything from bombing Syrian airfields to flying large amounts of humanitarian aid to the region."

According to the report, the military official "emphasized ( that) the options are for planning and there is no indication President Barack Obama is about to order any military action."

"The official made clear the US military would be extremely cautious about sending any manned aircraft into Syrian airspace," the CNN report said, adding that "the United States has long said the Syrians have a massive network of air defense radars and missiles that would have to be largely destroyed by bombing before American pilots could safely fly over Syria."