Arab Spring Winter
• Western analysts confirm Assad’s forces have used chemical agents. YNet writes:
A close examination of footage and other material by experts in the West proved that the regime’s army has in fact been using paralyzing chemical agents for a few months now against the rebels and civilians who support them. These agents are not mustard gas, sarin nerve gas or VX, which are classified as chemical weapons, but they can definitely be considered toxic and harmful to humans.
• Syria and Jordan had a border skirmish, with Syrian attack helicopters allegedly crossing the border too. The Times of Israel, citing other reports, says shelling in the Syrian city of Daraa spilled over to the Jordanian city of Ramtha.
Residents of Ramtha, located 2 miles from the Syrian border, told the Islamist Jordanian daily As-Sabeel that they flocked to their rooftops to view the heavy exchange of fire near the Ramtha border crossing around midnight Sunday morning. No report of military clashes appeared in the Jordanian mainstream media.
One Syrian shell landed near a mosque in Ramtha, Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday, causing Jordanian tanks stationed at the border to return fire towards Syria. Al-Jazeera reported a state of panic among Jordanian residents of the border area, some of whom left their homes after the shelling shattered their windows.
• The Washington Post reports grim numbers for Syria:
- 100,000: Expected fatalities in 2013 if fighting continues.
- 44,000: Syrians killed in the last 21 months
- 400: Syrians killed on Saturday alone
- 150-180: Syrians reportedly executed by government forces in Deir Baalba this week.
• Senators Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham teamed up for a Washington Post op-ed calling for more US action in Syria.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• French diplomat to Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland:
“Iran has responded to the toughening of sanctions by speeding up its work on a bomb, not slowing it down,” . . . “We now have only a relatively few months to act before Iran’s nuclear effort becomes irreversible.”
(Image of drone via IDF/Eran Levi)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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