Hot on the heels
of U.S. President Barack Obama’s push into Syria, Saudi King Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz is said to have cut short his private visit to Morocco to return to
the kingdom overnight.
The monarch and
his entourage have already left Morocco, according to Naharnet
news portal.
The news follows
reports of the Saudi military command ordering an “above
normal defense readiness” at the kingdom’s
largest air force base in Tabouk, close to the Jordan-Saudi border.
Observers
associate the developments to the Syria war.
Two senior Western
diplomats in Turkey told Reuters
today the United States is studying setting up a limited no-fly zone in Syria
close to the southern border with Jordan.
Their comments,
confirmed by a third regional diplomat, came after the White House said
overnight it would step up military assistance to rebels battling President
Bashar al-Assad in response to proof of chemical weapons use by Assad forces.
"Washington is
considering a no-fly zone to help Assad's opponents," one diplomat told Reuters. He said it would be limited
"time-wise and area-wise, possibly near the Jordanian border,"
without giving details.
U.S. military planners,
responding to a request by the White House to develop options for Syria,
recommended the limited no-fly zone along the Syrian border to protect rebels
and refugees inside Jordan.
The plan, according to
the Wall
Street Journal, would create what one official called a "no
fighting zone" that would stretch up to 25 miles into Syrian territory
along the Jordanian border, preventing Assad forces from launching attacks
against the rebels and refugees and protecting U.S. personnel involved in
distributing weapons and providing training.
Under this plan, the
U.S. and its allies would enforce the zone using aircraft flown from Jordanian
bases and flying inside the kingdom, according to U.S. officials.
Jordan has been
inundated by a flood of refugees Jordanian and U.S. officials say is a growing
threat to the kingdom, a key U.S. ally in the region.
The U.S. has already
moved Patriot air defense batteries and F-16 fighter planes to Jordan, which
could be integral to any no-fly zone if President Obama approves the military
proposal.
Proponents of the
proposal think a no-fly zone could be imposed without a UN Security Council
resolution, since the U.S. would not regularly enter Syrian airspace and
wouldn't hold Syrian territory.
U.S. warplanes have
air-to-air missiles that could destroy Syrian planes from long ranges.
The U.S. is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for
the first time, the White House announced overnight.
Ben Rhodes, spokesman
for President Obama, did not give details about the military aid other than to
say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided
before".
He said, "I can't
go through an inventory of the type of assistance we are providing but suffice
to say it's going to be substantively different from what we were
providing."
The U.S. had warned any
use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line.”
The BBC's Jim Muir
in Beirut says the White House announcement is one the Syrian opposition has
been pushing and praying for for months.
The Syrian opposition’s
clamoring for U.S. arms peaked after thousands of guerillas from Iran’s
Lebanese Hezbollah movement crossed into Syria last month to fight alongside
Assad’s troops.
NATO Secretary General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Washington’s “clear” statement.
"Urgent that Syria
regime should let UN investigate all reports of chemical weapons use," he
said on his official Twitter feed.
Rhodes, a deputy
national security adviser to President Obama, said the U.S. intelligence
community believed the "Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including
the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times
over the last year".
He said intelligence
officials had a "high confidence" in their assessment, and also
estimated that 100 to 150 people had died from chemical weapons attacks,
"however, casualty data is likely incomplete".
"We have
consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and
crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for
decades," Rhodes said.
He highlighted four
instances in which the U.S. believes chemical weapons were used: on March 19 in
the Aleppo suburb of Khan Al-Asal; April 13 in the Aleppo neighborhood of
Sheikh Maksoud; May 14, in Qasr Abu Samra, which is north of Homs; and on May
23 in an attack in eastern Damascus.
Rhodes said President
Obama had made the decision to increase assistance, including "military
support", to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and Syrian Opposition
Coalition.
He did not give details
of the aid, but U.S. media quoted administration officials as saying it will
most likely include sending small arms and ammunition.
The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as
saying Washington could provide anti-tank weapons.
Syria's rebels have
been calling for both anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry.
The Wall Street Journal said Washington is
also considering a no-fly zone inside Syria, possibly near the border with
Jordan, which would protect refugees and rebels who are training there.
When asked whether
Obama would back a no-fly zone over Syria, Rhodes said one would not make a
"huge difference" on the ground -- but would be costly.
He said further actions
would be taken "on our own timeline."
The CIA is expected to
co-ordinate delivery of the military equipment and to train the rebel soldiers
on how to use it.
Until now, the U.S. has
limited its help to rebel forces by providing food rations and medical
supplies.
Rhodes said the White
House hoped the increased support would bolster the effectiveness and
legitimacy of both the political and military arms of Syria's rebels, and said
the U.S. was "comfortable" working with SMC chief Gen. Salim Idriss.
"It's been
important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more
extremist elements of the opposition, such as (Jabhat) al-Nusra," he said.
A senior pro-Kremlin
politician in Russia -- the Damascus government’s chief ally and arms supplier
-- said U.S. claims of the Assad government's use of chemical weapons were
"fabricated.”
Russian President Vladimir
Putin's senior foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said information provided by
the United States to Russia over suspected use of chemical weapons by President
Assad's forces "does not look convincing.”
Obama and Putin will
hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the summit of eight leading
industrial nations early next week in Northern Ireland.
The White House
announcement immediately shook up the ongoing debate in Washington DC over how
the U.S. might provide assistance to the rebels.
Republican Senators
John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been particularly strident in their
calls for military aid, said the finding must change US policy in Syria. They
called for further action, saying US credibility was on the line.
"A decision to
provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to
opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the president will take
this urgently needed step," they said in a joint statement.
"But providing
arms alone is not sufficient. The president must rally an international
coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad's ability to use airpower
and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the
battlefield by air."
House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio, was also pleased with the decision and had a call for further
action.
"It is long past
time to bring the Assad regime's bloodshed in Syria to an end," said
Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. "As President Obama examines his options,
it is our hope he will properly consult with Congress before taking any
action."
And House Intelligence
Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., released a statement saying, "I am pleased
that President Obama's Administration has joined the growing international
chorus declaring that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons in Syria,
crossing the red line drawn by the president last August."
But Rogers doesn’t want
the assistance to stop there: “As I called for in a USA Today op-ed earlier this week," Rogers said, "the
United States should assist the Turks and our Arab League partners to create
safe zones in Syria from which the U.S. and our allies can train, arm, and
equip vetted opposition forces."
