Syria’s government likely fired lethal chemical weapons on a rebel village in Aleppo yesterday, US intelligence officials said — prompting the strongest calls yet for American intervention.
“I have a high probability to believe that chemical weapons were used” by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), head of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN.
“We need that final verification, but given everything we know over the last year and a half, I would come to [that] conclusion,” he said.
The explosive charge came hours after the government and rebels each claimed they had been fired on by weapons containing poisonous gas.
The government said 21 civilians and 10 soldiers were killed.
Rogers and other officials said the development could force the White House to take action in a bid to halt the ratcheting-up of Syria’s civil war.
“If it takes a limited military strike to do that, I think we are morally obligated to do that if, in fact, they have crossed the president’s ‘red line’ of chemical-weapons use,” Rogers said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, added to CNN, “It is serious.
“This is highly classified information, and we’ve been advised to be very careful what we say. The White House has to make some decisions in this,’’ she said. “The days are becoming more desperate.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney said only, “We are looking carefully at allegations of . . . chemical-weapons use; we are evaluating them.”
The drama came hours after rebels elected a prime minister to oversee areas that have come under their control during the two-year civil war.
While Assad’s information minister claimed that “the terrorists used a weapon that is banned in accordance with international law,’’ rebels said they were attacked by a long-range missile carrying a chemical warhead.
Syria’s government is believed to have an arsenal of nerve agents such as mustard gas — and the SCUD missiles to carry them.
Republicans piled on in favor of intervention.
In a statement reported by Fox News, they said the United States should oversee “the provision of arms to vetted Syrian opposition groups, targeted strikes against Assad’s aircraft and SCUD missile batteries on the ground, and the establishment of safe zones inside Syria to protect civilians and opposition groups.”With