The Syrian goverment has acknowledged for the first time that it has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

It said on Monday, however, that it would use them only in a foreign attack and never internally against its own citizens.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the stockpiles were secure in an apparent response to widespread international concerns that they could fall into the hands of the disparate bands of rebel forces fighting the government.

“No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used, and I repeat, will never be used, during the crisis in Syria no matter what the developments inside Syria,” he said on state television.

“All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression.”

Syria is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas, Scud missiles capable of delivering these lethal chemicals and a variety of advanced conventional arms, including anti-tank rockets and late-model portable anti-aircraft missiles.

Israel has said it fears that chaos following Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall could allow the Jewish state’s enemies to gain access to Syria’s chemical weapons and has not ruled out military intervention to prevent this from happening.

A senior US intelligence official said the Syrians have moved chemical weapons material from the northern end of the country, where the fighting was fiercest, apparently to both secure it and to consolidate it, which US officials considered a responsible step.

But there has also been a disturbing rise in activity at all the installations, so US intelligence is intensifying its monitoring efforts to track the weapons and to work out whether the Syrians are trying to use them, the official said.

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