Syria: We would never use nerve gas, even against Israel

Damascus denies chemical weapon usage, day after Israel says it has conclusive evidence of of sarin attack

Syria denied Wednesday it would use chemical weapons, saying it would not deploy nerve agents “even against Israel.”

The comment by Syria’s information minister came a day after the top Israel Defense Forces analyst said Jerusalem had concluded that the regime of embattled President Bashar Assad had used chemical weapons against rebels several times.

“Even if Syria does have chemical weapons, our leadership and our military will not use them either against Syrians or against Israelis, above all for moral reasons and secondarily on legal and political grounds,” Omran al-Zoubi said during a visit to Moscow University, according to a report by Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted by Reuters.

Syria is widely believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpiles, which officials in the West and neighboring countries fear may be used by Assad or fall into jihadi or Hezbollah hands.

Speaking at a security conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, IDF intelligence analyst Brig. Gen. Itai Brun said that based on the pictures of victims in Syria — the size of their pupils, “and the foam coming out of their mouths” — the army believed that Assad’s troops had used the lethal nerve gas sarin as a weapon.

The US, which has said chemical weapon use would be a “red line” necessitating intervention, was quick to distance itself from the report, saying it could not confirm the use of sarin.

On Wednesday, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations warned the UN Security Council that Hezbollah, allied with Assad, was close to getting its hands on Syria’s massive stockpile of chemical weapons.

“In Lebanon, Hezbollah is building an army equipped with 50,000 missiles — more than many NATO members. Now they might have access to one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world,” Ron Prosor said.