Obama: All options for Syria are being considered

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Barack Obama said his administration is looking at every option to end the bloodshed in Syria.

The president said Thursday, during a pres conference in Mexico, that his administration is proceeding cautiously as it looks at options, to ensure that what it does is helpful to the situation rather than making it more deadly or complex.

Earlier Thursday, Obama’s defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, became the first top US official to acknowledge publicly that the administration is rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels opposing President Bashar Assad.

During a Pentagon news conference with British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, Hagel said arming the rebels was one option that the administration was considering in consultation with its allies. But he said he personally had not decided whether it would be a wise or appropriate move.

“Arming the rebels — that’s an option,” he said. “You look at and rethink all options. It doesn’t mean you do or you will. … It doesn’t mean that the president has decided on anything.”

There is growing talk within the administration that arming the rebels might be warranted amid more indications that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons.

Administration officials said Wednesday that arming the opposition forces was seen as more likely than any other military option. They cited US intelligence beliefs that the rebels may be distancing themselves from the al-Qaeda-linked group there.

The administration announced last week that it believed Assad has used chemical weapons but said the intelligence wasn’t definitive.

Damascus has denied it has used chemical weapons, saying the Syrian rebels were trying to frame the regime.

Other military options under discussion include creating a no-fly zone over the country or a limited safe zone where Syrians could be free from violence. There has been little appetite for putting US military boots on the ground in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday that at least 50 people — and possibly as many as 100 —  were killed in the violence in Bayda, a village outside the city of Banias. It cited witnesses who said some of the dead were killed with knives or blunt objects and that dozens of villagers were still missing.

Syria’s two-year civil war has left an estimated 70,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.