re: #171 Decatur Deb

The reports on chem weapons are just weird—they’re not the kind of thing that can be useful in close quarters fighting. Yesterday there was a description of a battle in or around a Sarin plant. That would be suicidal.

You mean this one?

Rebels battle Syrian army near chemical weapons site

Syrian government and rebel forces battled near a chemical weapons site in Damascus Sunday, a day after unsubstantiated reports surfaced of an Israeli air strike on a similar site near the capital.

President Bashar Assad’s army counterattacked for the third day in an attempt to drive rebels out of main areas of the capital Damascus. Reuters reported that the battles took place place near the Scientific Studies and Research Center in the Barzeh district of the capital, which has been reported to be a chemical weapons site.

…Both Israel and Western governments are concerned about the fate of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, one of the largest in the world, and the possibility that such weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of Syrian rebels or Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Sunday’s clashes followed a Maariv report, citing the Free Syrian Army, which claimed that Israeli jets struck a chemical weapons site near the Syrian capital.

Neither the Syrian nor Israeli governments responded to the report, which didn’t specify which site was allegedly struck.

Bad shit going on out there.