WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday threatened military action against Syria if there was evidence that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was moving its stocks of chemical or biological weapons. It was Mr. Obama’s most direct warning of American intervention in Syria, where Mr. Assad’s military is fighting an 18-month-old rebellion.
“We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in an impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room. “We have put together a range of contingency plans. We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us.”
The president said he was deeply troubled by the possibility that the safekeeping of such weapons was now at risk in the Assad government’s increasingly harsh effort to crush the uprising. “That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria,” Mr. Obama declared. “It concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us.”
Syria is believed to have accumulated huge supplies of mustard gas, sarin nerve agent and cyanide. Mr. Assad and other members of his government have said that the weapons would not be used except in the case of foreign intervention —a threat that has been interpreted as an attempt to deter any attack by Western nations.
The United States, Mr. Obama said, was closely monitoring the situation for any signs that weapons had been moved. While he did not say there was evidence, he said that, given the volatility of the crisis, he could not be absolutely confident that Mr. Assad’s government would not try to deploy these weapons.
“At this point,” Mr. Obama said, “the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”
The president’s comments on Syria came at the end of a brief but fairly wide-ranging news conference, in which he also addressed the recent spate of attacks by Afghan troops on their American counterparts, which he called “deeply troubling” and said he planned to raise directly with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
In Syria, Mr. Assad’s forces stepped up their attacks in and around the southwest city of Dara’a on Monday, with activists reporting raids, summary executions of suspected opposition figures, and intensified shelling that threatened to reach across the Jordanian border as it did a day earlier, wounding a young girl inside Jordan.
The assault on Sunday, criticized on Monday by the Jordanian government, seemed to be part of an extended campaign by the Syrian government to regain control of the area, the birthplace of the uprising, which has more recently been the source of several high profile defectors including the former prime minister, Riad Farid Hijab.
Activists said the city was under siege. After shelling hit a field hospital on Sunday, killing doctors and nurses, medical services and supplies were in short supply, said Kayssar Habib, a spokesman for the opposition Sham News Network in Dara’a. He and other activists also said that extrajudicial executions were now on the rise in Dara’a.
“The regime forces are taking men out of shelters and executing them,” said Mr. Habib. “Most of them are civilians.”
House to house raids targeting the opposition seem to be expanding elsewhere as well. On Monday, activists circulated a video online showing the unidentified bodies of 10 people activists said were civilians killed in the Damascus neighborhood of Al-Qaboun. In the video, the bodies – including several women — appeared on a street corner, with many seemingly bearing the marks of torture.
Elsewhere, in the province of Damascus, activists reported heavy shelling. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, said several rockets hit a hospital in one Damascus suburb.
In Aleppo, the ground battles continued between the Free Syrian Army and government forces. Clashes were reported next the military court and the ruling Baath Party headquarters in Al-Jamiliya’s central district, bordering the city’s old quarters, according to the Observatory, which has a network of contacts inside Syria.
The military also dropped fliers on the city warning “loyal citizens” against hosting “terrorists,” the label the regime uses for rebel fighters. Other fliers dropped on Aleppo offered safe passage for civilians wishing to cross military checkpoints, possibly an effort to convince noncombatants to leave the city in advance of military raids.
Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Damien Cave from Beirut, Lebanon. Dalal Mawad contributed reporting from Beirut.
“We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in an impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room. “We have put together a range of contingency plans. We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us.”
The president said he was deeply troubled by the possibility that the safekeeping of such weapons was now at risk in the Assad government’s increasingly harsh effort to crush the uprising. “That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria,” Mr. Obama declared. “It concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us.”
Syria is believed to have accumulated huge supplies of mustard gas, sarin nerve agent and cyanide. Mr. Assad and other members of his government have said that the weapons would not be used except in the case of foreign intervention —a threat that has been interpreted as an attempt to deter any attack by Western nations.
The United States, Mr. Obama said, was closely monitoring the situation for any signs that weapons had been moved. While he did not say there was evidence, he said that, given the volatility of the crisis, he could not be absolutely confident that Mr. Assad’s government would not try to deploy these weapons.
“At this point,” Mr. Obama said, “the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”
The president’s comments on Syria came at the end of a brief but fairly wide-ranging news conference, in which he also addressed the recent spate of attacks by Afghan troops on their American counterparts, which he called “deeply troubling” and said he planned to raise directly with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
In Syria, Mr. Assad’s forces stepped up their attacks in and around the southwest city of Dara’a on Monday, with activists reporting raids, summary executions of suspected opposition figures, and intensified shelling that threatened to reach across the Jordanian border as it did a day earlier, wounding a young girl inside Jordan.
The assault on Sunday, criticized on Monday by the Jordanian government, seemed to be part of an extended campaign by the Syrian government to regain control of the area, the birthplace of the uprising, which has more recently been the source of several high profile defectors including the former prime minister, Riad Farid Hijab.
Activists said the city was under siege. After shelling hit a field hospital on Sunday, killing doctors and nurses, medical services and supplies were in short supply, said Kayssar Habib, a spokesman for the opposition Sham News Network in Dara’a. He and other activists also said that extrajudicial executions were now on the rise in Dara’a.
“The regime forces are taking men out of shelters and executing them,” said Mr. Habib. “Most of them are civilians.”
House to house raids targeting the opposition seem to be expanding elsewhere as well. On Monday, activists circulated a video online showing the unidentified bodies of 10 people activists said were civilians killed in the Damascus neighborhood of Al-Qaboun. In the video, the bodies – including several women — appeared on a street corner, with many seemingly bearing the marks of torture.
Elsewhere, in the province of Damascus, activists reported heavy shelling. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, said several rockets hit a hospital in one Damascus suburb.
In Aleppo, the ground battles continued between the Free Syrian Army and government forces. Clashes were reported next the military court and the ruling Baath Party headquarters in Al-Jamiliya’s central district, bordering the city’s old quarters, according to the Observatory, which has a network of contacts inside Syria.
The military also dropped fliers on the city warning “loyal citizens” against hosting “terrorists,” the label the regime uses for rebel fighters. Other fliers dropped on Aleppo offered safe passage for civilians wishing to cross military checkpoints, possibly an effort to convince noncombatants to leave the city in advance of military raids.
Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Damien Cave from Beirut, Lebanon. Dalal Mawad contributed reporting from Beirut.