Damascus countdown: Did Syria use chemical weapons in December?

[Damascus countdown: Did Syria use chemical weapons in December? By Joel Rosenberg] "Keep your eye on Syria, and keep praying for the Syrian people. The bloodshed there continues unabated. And the countdown to something worse may have started.

In early December, media reports suggested the Assad regime in Syria was preparing to use chemical weapons. Now a report by Foreign Policy magazine says Damascus may have actually used such weapons of mass destruction in late December. Could such revelations lead to a U.S. or Israeli strike on Syria’s remaining WMD stockpiles?

“A secret State Department cable has concluded that the Syrian military likely used chemical weapons against its own people in a deadly attack last month,” reports Foreign Policy magazine under this headline: “Exclusive: Secret State Department cable: Chemical weapons used in Syria.”

FP goes on to report: “United States diplomats in Turkey conducted a previously undisclosed, intensive investigation into claims that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, and made what an Obama administration official who reviewed the cable called a “compelling case” that Assad’s military forces had used a deadly form of poison gas. The cable, signed by the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, Scott Frederic Kilner, and sent to State Department headquarters in Washington last week, outlined the results of the consulate’s investigation into reports from inside Syria that chemical weapons had been used in the city of Homs on Dec. 23….The use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross the “red line” President Barack Obama first established in an Aug. 20 statement. ‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation,’ Obama said.”

I find myself watching Syria very closely these days and praying for peace and calm in that beleaguered country. In my forthcoming thriller, Damascus Countdown (releasing March 5th), Syria and weapons of mass destruction become the focal point of another major war in the Middle East, and one that draws in Israel and Iran with catastrophic implications..." Full text: Damascus countdown: Did Syria use chemical weapons in December?

Also see:

Tensions growing between Obama & Netanyahu: Are we headed for a train wreck in U.S.-Israeli relations?

The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts [Isa. 17:3].

"The northern kingdom of Israel must bear her share of the burden or judgment of Damascus because of the alliance they have. Both were besieged by Tiglath–pileser, as recorded in 2 Kings 15:29, and were finally deported by the Assyrian, Shalmaneser, as recorded in 2 Kings 17:6. This certainly was a partial fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy; and, as far as many are concerned, it is the total fulfillment. But I feel that all of this is looking even to a future day. Certainly this has been fulfilled partially at least, but oftentimes in the Word of God we find that God is letting us know, by giving an earlier partial fulfillment, that a prophecy will be completely fulfilled." McGee, J. V. (1991). Vol. 22: Thru the Bible commentary: The Prophets (Isaiah 1-35) (electronic ed.) (140). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Damascus countdown: Did Syria use chemical weapons in December?