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Israeli intel says Damascus used chemical weapons against rebels by joelcrosenberg

"Israel’s top military intelligence analyst said Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons against rebels, and warned his own country may soon become a target," Bloomberg News reports. "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry questioned whether there’s hard evidence of chemical arms use, telling reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been unable to confirm the reports in a phone call today."

"The remarks by Brigadier-General Itai Brun, chief of research and analysis for the army’s military intelligence division, could edge the U.S. closer to entering the conflict," notes Bloomberg News. "President Barack Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons would be a 'game changer' in deciding whether the U.S. should intervene in Syria’s civil war. The U.K. and France have also alleged that President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have used chemical weapons against rebel fighters."

"To the best of our professional understanding, the regime has used lethal chemical weapons on a number of occasions, including the incident on March 19," the head of the Research Division at Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, said at conference of the Institute for National Security Studies, reports Haaretz. "In his remarks to the INSS, Brun addressed the characteristics that led IDF Military Intelligence to this conclusion, photographs taken of the affected areas after the attacks, including depictions of foam coming out of the mouths of Syrians in the area of the attacks. Brun added that the Israeli intelligence community believed that the chemical weapon used was sarin-based."

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