Rebels say Assad transferred chemical weapons to Hezbollah

A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army claimed on Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad had recently transferred two shipments of chemical weapons to the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah.

Fahad al Masri told the Lebanese news website El Nashra that international security forces were aware of the shipments. His comments were not confirmed by any other sources.

Al Masri said that the weapons were moved from an area near Damascus to Lebanese territory sometime in the past several weeks, and that the transfer was coordinated by Syria and Iran.

Also on Thursday, the top US military officer told a Senate panel the Obama administration is deliberating whether to use military power in Syria, where a civil war entering its third year has killed almost 93,000 people.

Amid an increasing clamor among Assad’s opposition for active US involvement, Army General Martin Dempsey said during congressional testimony that he has provided President Barack Obama with options for the use of force. But he declined to detail those choices, saying “it would be inappropriate for me to try to influence the decision with me rendering an opinion in public about what kind of force we should use.”

The remarks by the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman came after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, asked him which approach in Syria would carry a greater risk: continued limited action on the part of Washington or more significant actions such as the establishment of a no-fly zone and arming the rebel forces with the weapons they need to stem the advance Assad’s forces.

“Senator, I am in favor of building a moderate opposition and supporting it,” Dempsey said. “The question whether to support it with direct kinetic strikes … is a decision for our elected officials, not for the senior military leader of the nation.”

The use of kinetic strikes, a military term that typically refers to missiles and bombs, “is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government,” Dempsey said.

“There are a whole range of options that are out there,” Navy Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said of the planning for military action in Syria. “We are ready to act if we’re called on to act.”

McCain later told a group of reporters he plans to block Dempsey’s confirmation, saying he was dissatisfied with the answers to the questions Dempsey was asked about Syria.

Dempsey acknowledged in response to a question from Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, that Assad’s forces have the upper hand in Syria.

“Currently the tide seems to have shifted in his favor,” the general said.

The Armed Services Committee is considering Dempsey’s and Winnefeld’s nominations for a second term. The Democratic-led committee is all but certain to approve the reappointments.

Leading senators including Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, the committee chairman, and McCain, have been pressing Obama to take a more forceful approach to defeat Assad’s forces. While the administration has authorized lethal aid to rebel forces battling Assad’s troops, it isn’t trying to enforce a no-fly zone in which Syria’s combat aircraft would be barred from flying, or otherwise intervene militarily to halt the war.

To avoid getting drawn deeper into Syria’s civil war, administration officials have pointed to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an example of what can go wrong when America’s military becomes involved in Middle East conflicts.

“We’ve rushed to war in this region in the past. We’re not going to do it here,” Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

During his exchange with McCain, Dempsey said “situations can be made worse by the introduction of military force” without first understanding how the country would continue to govern and ensuring that government institutions don’t fail.

Dempsey’s first term as chairman has been a turbulent one with the military drawing down from lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, he has had to grapple with billions of dollars in budget cuts that have threatened military readiness, the epidemic of sexual assaults in the ranks, the crisis in Syria, and most recently unrest in Egypt.

Dempsey also addressed the emerging picture of serious flaws inside the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command. He called the flaws discouraging and “moving rapidly toward disgraceful.”

Dempsey said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called him while traveling this week to make sure he was aware of reports that the MIA accounting effort is plagued by internal conflict and dysfunction. Hagel wants to “get to the bottom” of the problem, he said.

Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, said the committee needs to hold hearings to investigate.