AP Photo/United Media Office of Arbeen In this Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by the United media office of Arbeen which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a member of a UN investigation team takes samples of sands near a part of a missile is likely to be one of the chemical rockets according to activists, in the Damascus countryside of Ain Terma, Syria. The intelligence linking the Syrian regime and President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 Syrians is no "slam dunk," with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say.
A European diplomat told The Times that Bassam Sabbagh, the Syrian representative to the group overseeing the destruction of the Syrian arsenal, reported attacks on a storage site near the city of Homs and a second site outside Damascus at the group's executive council meeting.
It's the first reported assault threatening its chemical stockpile since the U.S. and Russia deal on September 14 amid threats of an American attack on Syria in retaliation for the August 21 chemical weapon gassing by Assad's government that killed as many as 1,400 people in the Damascus suburbs.
Assad's government missed the Dec. 31 deadline for exporting the 1,200 tons of toxic agents it has accumulated over decades, although an unknown amount left the Syrian port of Latakia this week.
The United Nations Security Council resolution mandates that the entire arsenal must be destroyed by June 30. But Syria is responsible for security, which means that the deal relies on the same government that amassed and deployed the toxic chemicals.
As Michael Weiss explained in December:
"It was never any mystery that Bashar al-Assad was re-legitimized by the chemical disarmament accord agreed to last September between the US and Russia, which was then certified by the only UN Security Council resolution ever passed on the Syria crisis. But recent events have proved that Assad is now also a necessary military partner for overseeing the safe conduct of chemical agents out of Syria. The humanitarian implications of this fact are dire and already in evidence."
Russia and China continue to block U.N. Security Council statements condemning Assad's relentless airstrikes on the city of Aleppo - which include dropping steel barrels packed with explosives and shrapnel - so the brutal ruler is also a mostly weapons free Western military partner as he attempts to clear the way.