US sponsored Al Qaeda cells in Syria to secure Chemical Weapons – “good luck with that President Obama”

Syrian opposition will secure regime’s chemical weapons: report
29 May, 2012 – The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Syria’s opposition plans to secure the regime’s chemical weapons stock as soon as President Bashar Assad falls, according to an Israeli newspaper.

“We know the locations of the chemical weapon stores,” Haaretz reported a former senior officer in the Syrian army as telling the newspaper.

The officer, whom Haaretz said spoke on condition of anonymity, added: “We will be ready to move and secure them quickly. I can’t promise that nothing will be removed but we have our information and it is not so simple to move around chemical weapons.”

Syria’s alleged chemical weapons stock is reportedly controlled by air force intelligence. The Israeli government has expressed concern that these chemical weapons could get into the hands of Hezbollah or other groups it labels “terrorists.”

Haaretz’s source said that he had fought in Syria’s wars against Israel and is still intimately connected to members of the army, many of whom have defected to the rebel Free Syrian Army.

“In addition to fighting the regime,” he said, “there are a group of us preparing for the chaos that we know will ensue on the day the regime is toppled. We have committees dealing with a new constitution and elections, justice and the restoration of security.”

The officer said that the Syrian opposition had prepared a four-stage plan for the aftermath of Assad’s rule, and that immediately following Assad’s fall “one of the priorities during those hours is taking control of the chemical weapons so they won’t fall into the hands of terrorists.”

The officer estimated that around a third of the Syrian armed forces have defected so far, with 60,000 having returned home and 30,000 actively fighting in the ranks of the opposition, mainly the Free Syrian Army.

He expressed his belief that this is insufficient to topple the Assad government, as the soldiers lack proper organization and sophisticated weapons, including equipment from Russia, and remain outnumbered by the state army by at least two to one.
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