Operation Ostrava: Month 17, Week 2, Day 1.

Yesterday (13/7/12) the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper ran a story citing an un-named US intelligence source claiming that the US had spy satellite images and possible communications intercepts showing that the Syrian government had been moving it's stockpiles of chemical weapons including Sarin, VX, Tabun and Mustard gas. As the source's comments were off the record it is hard to tell specifically what was moved where, when and by whom. However what I suspect has happened is that the Syrian government has been moving it's stockpiles stored near Saudi Irregular Army (SIA) positions in the Kurdish mountains to more secure sites near Hama. This has been done for several reasons.

Primarily it's been done to stop the weapon stockpiles falling into SIA hands. Although the SIA are being supplied with weapons and other equipment through Turkey and Lebanon a large part of their equipment comes from what they can steal from the Syrian military. Considering what they did at al-Houla the prospect of this type of weapon falling into SIA hands is a very scary one indeed. In fact most of the concern of Iran's nuclear weapons program is not that Iran will use nuclear weapons it's that if Iran gets nuclear weapons Saudi Arabia will demand them and Saudi Arabia most likely will use them. Secondarily Syria is trying to draw attention to their chemical weapon stockpiles to discourage further foreign intervention. If the Syrian state collapses due to a sanction driven cash crisis the nation's chemical weapons stockpiles are so large that it is almost inevitable that some of them will either fall into the hands of Jihadist groups so extreme they make Al Qaeda look moderate or into the hands of organised crime groups who will sell anything to anyone. Both of these scenarios dramatically increase the chances of western nations suffering mass casualty terror attacks.

Finally and most complicatedly Syria appears to be trying to have some sort of discussion about the amount of surveillance the US has the country under. This is important because the US has been quite open about the fact that some of the non-lethal support they've been giving the SIA is providing them with satellite information about the location and movement of Syrian forces. It is also important because following the al-Houla massacre the US made public satellite images showing that there had been tracked vehicles in the area at the time of the massacre. Despite the fact that the SIA themselves have access to tracked vehicles and all the other evidence suggesting that that the al-Houla massacre was carried out by Sunnis against Alawites these satellite pictures more then anything else were used to blame the massacre on the predominately Alawite Syrian government. This is why it is important to know when the US first became aware of the chemical weapon movements. If it happened just before Thursday's (12/7/12) massacre at Tremseh it looks like the Syrian government getting their excuses in early making it more likely they carried out the Tremseh massacre. However based on what I know about satellite/aeriel photograph recognition I'm guessing that the US first became aware of the chemical weapon movements significantly (Sunday/Monday) before the Tremseh massacre. Therefore the massacre could have been an attempt by someone who had knowledge of the chemical weapon movements to make it look like the Syrian government were getting their excuses in early further smearing the Syrian government.

As for the Tremseh massacre the United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) observers have today (14/7/12) attempted to visit the village to investigate the massacre. However they have been forced to turn back by local residents who are sympathetic to the SIA and are blaming the atrocity on the Syrian government. However the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is set to discuss the incident in the early part of this coming week (Monday/Tuesday). In itself this is a significant problem. With the UNSMIS mandate set to expire this coming Friday (20/7/12) the UNSC is desperately trying to find a way to renew the UNSMIS mandate. Russia and China are pushing for a 90 day extension, the US is pushing for a 45 day extension while Britain seems happy to see the mandate expire. The extra dimension to discussions that the Tremseh massacre creates increases the likelihood that no agreement will be reached and the UNSMIS mandate will expire. This will obviously help people who don't want independent observers looking into things like al-Houla and Tremseh and trying to find out exactly what happened and who was responsible.


Edited at around 18:30 on 14/7/12 to add:

Obviously the argument between the Israel, the US and the Gulf Monarchies over Syria's chemical weapons has been going on behind the scenes for a number of months. To assuage Israeli fears US special forces have been training Saudi, Qatari, Turkish and United Arab Emirates special forces in Jordan to go in a seize the chemical weapons. Given the high number of storage sites that these forces must strike simultaneously at very short notice even this plan is more then a little bit optimistic. If the Syrian government is moving it stockpiles around it becomes impossible. So by drawing attention to the fact it is moving it's weapons stockpiles the Syrian government is attempting to manipulate Israel into increasing it's opposition to further intervention. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear first time round but it is after all my traditional day off.