U.S. spies certain Assad used nerve gas 'after intercepting phone call from panicking Syrian defence chief demanding an explanation from its chemical weapon military unit'

Syrian MoD 'exchanged phone calls with leader of chemical weapons unit'

U.S spies allegedly overheard the phone call demanding an explantion



Israelis line up at gas-mask distribution in case of possible Syrian attack



Israeli TV station accused Maher al-Assad of being behind deadly attack

Syria has denied using stocks of sarin to shell the area

Syria's deputy foreign minister: US, Britain and France helped 'terrorists' use chemical weapons in Syria



The U.S is confident that Syria was behind the deadly chemical weapons attack after intercepting a phone call from a Syrian defence chief demanding an explanation from its chemical weapon military unit for the action, according to new claims.



Just hours after the attack last Wednesday an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of the unit, demanding answers, according to website Foreign Policy.

The phone call was intercepted by U.S spies according to the website, and is now the reason that America is confident that it was carried out by the regime.



The US and its allies are gearing up for a probable military strike against Syria that could come within days and would be the most aggressive action by Western powers in the Middle Eastern nation's two-and-a-half-year civil war.

Scroll down for video



Panic: Large crowds of Israelis have lined up at gas-mask distribution centers across the country in anticipation of a possible Syrian attack on Israel

Speculation: The U.S. has signaled that it will soon strike Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons last week. That has raised speculation that Syria might retaliate with an attack on Israel, a close U.S. ally



Tensions: They fear they could be dragged into the attack that left hundreds dead

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks out with his children after collecting gas mask kits at a distribution point in Jerusalem

Israelis queue outside a gas mask distribution point in Tel Aviv

Up to 1,200 people were killed in Damascus last week - including many children following the horrific attack - Syrian has vehemently denied it used stocks of sarin to shell the area.

'It's unclear where control lies,' one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. 'Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?'



This afternoon Syria's deputy foreign minister said that the United States, Britain and France helped 'terrorists' use chemical weapons in Syria, and that the same groups would soon use them against Europe.



Speaking to reporters outside the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus, Faisal Maqdad said he had presented U.N. chemical weapons inspectors with evidence that 'armed terrorist groups' had used sarin gas in all the sites of alleged attacks.



'We repeat that the terrorist groups are the ones that used (chemical weapons) with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and this has to stop,' he said. 'This means these chemical weapons will soon be used by the same groups against the people of Europe,' he added.



But NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said information from a variety of sources pointed to President Bashar al-Assad's forces being responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.



Speaking after a meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, Rasmussen said any use of such weapons was 'unacceptable and cannot go unanswered', although he did not suggest any response.



'This is a clear breach of long-standing international norms and practice... Those responsible must be held accountable,' he said in a statement.



The UN inspector's team leaves the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus, Syria this morning. The team, which put off inspections on August 27, is likely to continue its mission in probing the alleged use of chemical weapons in the countryside of Damascus

The head of UN inspector's team, Professor Ake Sellstrom(second right), and Angela Kane (far right), the representative on the United Nations for Disarmament Issues, raise their thumbs as they are watch the departure of the UN team

A convoy of U.N. vehicles carrying a team of United Nations chemical weapons experts and escorted by Free Syrian Army fighters (vehicle on left) drive through one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pleaded for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian conflict, even as world powers appeared to be moving toward punitive military strikes against President Bashar Assad's regime

TODAY'S WORLD REACTION TO SYRIA

Britain: Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain's own national security will be undermined if it fails to challenge the Syrian government over the use of chemical weapons against its own people. Australia: Endorsed possible retaliation against Syria over the use of chemical weapons, even if the U.N. Security Council, fails to agree on action.

China: Its top newspaper said the United States and its allies were seeking to use the issue of chemical weapons to pursue regime change in Syria illegally and fan an already ugly and difficult conflict. Russia: - Russia evacuated dozens of its citizens from Syria as the country's foreign minister warns that a military intervention by the U.S. and its allies would destabilize the region.

Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on U.S. intervention in Syria would be 'a disaster for the region', the ISNA state news agency reported. Israel: Government has ordered a 'limited' call-up of reserve troops in anticipation of a possible attack by Syria.

Iraq: Put its security forces on high alert ahead of an expected international strike on Syria, said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.



Rasmussen said the military alliance would keep the situation in Syria under 'close review'.



United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says a team of chemical weapons inspectors needs a total of four days to complete its investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus.



Ban said today the team had completed a second day of investigations at a site in a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus.



He says, 'Let them conclude ... their work for four days and then we will have to analyze scientifically' their findings and send a report to the Security Council.



United Nations spokesman Martin Nesirky said the team will complete its analysis as quickly as possible.



Ban's comments come as Washington and its allies appear to be preparing for a punitive military strike on the Assad regime, which it blames for the purported attack.



Today large crowds of Israelis have lined up at gas-mask distribution centers across the country in anticipation of a possible Syrian attack on Israel.



That has raised speculation that Syria might retaliate with an attack on Israel, a close U.S. ally.

Maya Avishai of the Israeli postal service, which oversees gas mask distribution, says demand has tripled in recent days.

She says about five million Israelis, roughly 60 percent of the population, now have gas masks.



Israel's Channel 2 TV showed a large crowd at a Tel Aviv distribution center on Wednesday, and said people were waiting for hours to collect their free gas masks.



Suffering: A woman (right) affected by what activists said appeared to be a gas attack is led to a team of UN chemical weapons experts (left) for checking during the team's visit to a site of an alleged attack in Damascus

Probe: United Nations arms experts visit a clinic as they inspect the site where rockets had fallen in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta during an investigation into a suspected chemical weapons strike

A coalition spearheaded by the US, Britain and France is preparing to punish Assad for allegedly gassing to death hundreds of innocent people last week

More talks: Foreign Secretary William Hague arrives at Downing Street this morning ahead of a National Security Council meeting today

Today British Foreign Secretary William Hague said B ritain's own national security will be undermined if it fails to challenge the Syrian government over the use of chemical weapons against its own people.



In an article published before Prime Minister David Cameron chairs Britain's National Security Council to finalise recommendations for a possible military response against Syria, Hague said the risks of doing nothing were too great.



'We must proceed in a careful and thoughtful way, but we cannot permit our own security to be undermined by the creeping normalisation of the use of weapons that the world has spent decades trying to control and eradicate,' Hague wrote in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Now was the moment for democratic nations to live up to their values, he added, saying that doing nothing would make further chemical attacks more likely, 'increase the risk that these weapons could fall into the wrong hands', and 'fatally undermine' global rules prohibiting chemical weapons use.



Lawmakers will debate Britain's response to the chemical attack in Syria on Thursday after Cameron cut short his holiday, recalled parliament, and rushed back to London to chair a meeting of the National Security Council.

China's top newspaper said on the United States and its allies were seeking to use the issue of chemical weapons to pursue regime change in Syria illegally and fan an already ugly and difficult conflict.



Western envoys have told the Syrian opposition to expect a military response soon against President Bashar al-Assad's forces as punishment for a chemical weapons attack last week, according to sources who attended a meeting with the rebel Syrian National Coalition in Istanbul.

Tension: A soldier cleans his shoos on top of a tank as Israeli troops take part in a military exercise near the border of Syria, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights

A tank maneuvers as Israeli troops take part in a military exercise near the border of Syria

Soldiers stand guard as Israeli troops take part in a military exercise

A soldier sits on top of an army bulldozer as Israeli troops take part in training

The People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, said the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a decade ago on the pretext he had weapons of mass destruction risked repeating itself in Syria.



'The essence of the Iraq war was to circumvent the United Nations and change the government of a sovereign nation with the aid of force,' the newspaper said in a commentary, which it said 'contravened the basic principles of morality and justice'.

'The international community must be on high alert for certain foreign forces repeating this method in Syria,' the paper said. 'Since the start of Syria's civil war, the impulse to forcefully topple the Assad government has never vanished.'



It also said the world should wait for the outcome of investigations by U.N. experts into the suspected use of chemical weapons.



Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon (right) and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (L) inside the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands today. Ban spoke in the Great Hall of Justice in the Peace Palace and pleaded for a diplomatic solution in the Syria conflict

Warning: Dictator Bashar Al-Assad said that any U.S. intervention in Syria was doomed to end in failure

Australia, incoming chair of the U.N. Security Council, has endorsed possible retaliation against Syria over the use of chemical weapons, even if the council fails to agree on action.



Australia, a close ally of the United States, is due to take over the rotating leadership of the council on Sunday, a role that requires it to assist council members to reach agreement.



But Foreign Minister Bob Carr said that if it was proved the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons, the world had a mandate to respond, even if the United Nations failed to agree on such action.



'We're moving to a stage where America and like-minded countries are contemplating what sort of response,' Carr told reporters on Wednesday.



'Our preference, everyone's preference, would be for action, a response, under United Nations auspices. But if that's not possible, the sheer horror of a government using chemical weapons against its people, using chemical weapons in any circumstances, mandates a response.'

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said U.S. intervention in Syria would be 'a disaster for the region', the ISNA state news agency reported, as Western powers made plans to hit Damascus over a chemical weapons attack.



After supporting Arab uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 as examples of what Khamenei called an 'Islamic awakening', Tehran has steadfastly supported the secular President Bashar al-Assad, its main strategic ally in the Middle East, against a two-and-a-half-year-long rebellion.

Iran is concerned that if Assad were overthrown, he would be replaced by either allies of the West or by radical Sunni Islamists tied to Saudi Arabia, both regarded as hostile by Shi'ite Iran. Syria is also a conduit for Iranian supplies to Shi'ite Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.



An Israeli official says the government has ordered a 'limited' call-up of reserve troops in anticipation of a possible attack by Syria.



The official says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Security Cabinet ordered the mobilization after special discussions on Wednesday.



With the U.S. threatening to attack Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons, Israel fears that Syria may respond with an attack on Israel.



Calling Assad a 'thug' and a 'murderer,' John Kerry declared, 'History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator's use of chemical weapons.'

'Evidence': Secretary of State John Kerry said images like these contributed to the U.S. assessment that chemical weapons were used in Syria

The official says the mobilization will include civil-defense units and reservists in air and rocket-defense units.



Iraq has put its security forces on high alert ahead of an expected international strike on Syria, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday.



'All political and security powers in Baghdad, the provinces and all over Iraq, announce the highest level of alert,' he said in a weekly televised statement which focused mainly on Syria.



Meanwhile Russia has evacuated dozens of its citizens from Syria as the country's foreign minister warns that a military intervention by the U.S. and its allies would destabilize the region.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry says it evacuated 89 people, 75 of them Russians, from Syria yesterday, with more expected today.



Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a statement Wednesday that armed intervention being considered by the U.S. and its allies 'will lead to the long-term destabilization of the situation in the country and the region.'

News agency ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian Embassy in Syria insisted that there was no plan to evacuate diplomats.

Tens of thousands of Russian citizens live in Syria, the legacy of years of cooperation and exchange between the two countries.

An al Qaeda affiliate threatened a 'Volcano of Revenge' against Syrian government security and military targets in retaliation for a suspected poison attack near Damascus, the SITE Monitoring Group reported late on Tuesday.



A branch of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) said in a statement it would punish Syria for a series of massacres, including last week's alleged chemical weapons attack, after meeting eight Syrian factions.



'The meeting factions decided to carry out the 'Volcano of Revenge' invasion in response to the regime's massacres against our people in Eastern Ghouta, the last of which was the chemical weapons massacre,' SITE quoted the statement, dated Aug. 26, as saying.

