NATO working on contingency plans for Syria: US commander

The top US military commander in Europe said several NATO countries are working on contingency plans for possible military action to end the two-year civil war in Syria as President Bashar Assad’s regime accused US-backed Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons.

The Obama administration rejected the Assad claim as a sign of desperation by a besieged government intent on drawing attention from its war atrocities, some 70,000 dead, more than 1 million refugees and 2.5 million people internally displaced.

A US official said there was no evidence that either Assad forces or the opposition had used chemical weapons in an attack in northern Syria.

As the war enters its third year, the US military, State Department officials and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees delivered a dire assessment of a deteriorating situation in Syria and the sober view that even if Assad leaves, the West Asian nation could slip into civil strife similar to the Balkans in the 1990s.

“The Syrian situation continues to become worse and worse and worse,” Adm. James Stavridis, the commander of US European Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. “No end in sight to a vicious civil war.”

Stavridis, who is retiring soon, said a number of NATO nations are looking at a variety of military operations to end the deadlock and assist the opposition forces, including using aircraft to impose a no-fly zone, providing military assistance to the rebels and imposing arms embargoes.

As with US and international involvement in Libya in 2011, a resolution from the UN Security Council and agreement among the alliance’s 28 members would be necessary before NATO assumes a military role in Syria, Stavridis said.

“We are prepared if called upon to be engaged as we were in Libya,” Stavridis said.

But within individual member countries, the admiral said, “there’s a great deal of discussion” about lethal support to Syria, no-fly zones, arms embargoes and more. “It is moving individually within the nations, but it has not yet come into NATO as an overall NATO-type approach,” he said.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, asked whether there is any consideration of targeting Syria’s air defences. Stavridis simply said yes.

NATO has installed Patriot missile defence batteries in southern Turkey along the border with Syria that are also capable of shooting down aircraft. During an exchange with Senator John McCain, a Republican, Stavridis said the Patriots could be positioned in such a way as to shoot down Syrian aircraft, and he indicated that doing so would be a powerful disincentive for pilots to fly in that area.

Turkey’s leaders have been “very emphatic” that the missiles be used only for defensive purposes, Stavridis said.

To use the batteries for other missions, including attacking Syrian military aircraft, would require consensus among NATO’s members “and we’re far from that,” Stavridis told the committee.

Stavridis said his personal opinion is that providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition “would be helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the Assad regime.” Syria’s state-run news agency said 25 people were killed in a chemical attack on the Khan al-Assad village in northern Aleppo province.

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