Army Official: Syria Pays Price of Enmity with Israel
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An Iranian Air Defense official said the US wants to attack Syria on the basis of a threadbare excuse, adding that in reality the Syrian nation and government are paying the price of their resistance against Israel.
“The Syrian people and their government are against the usurper Zionist regime and they are the supporters of (the Lebanese) Hezbollah, and close to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is why the Syrian women and children have been massacred,” Mohammad Ali Ansari, an official with Khatam ul-Anbia Air Defense Base, said.
He blamed the US for instigating civil war in Muslim countries, saying that the allegation-- the Syrian government was behind a chemical attack on civilians around Damascus on August 21-- is a pretext for Washington to weaken the anti-Israeli front and engulf the country in a civil war.
The air defense official meanwhile assured the Iranian nation that the country’s armed forces, and particularly the Iranian Air Defense forces, are quite competent in safeguarding the country’s territorial integrity, safety and stability.
Earlier, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed western allegations that he used chemical weapons as politically motivated and warned Washington any US military intervention would fail.
"Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day," he told the Izvestia daily on Monday when asked what would happen if Washington decided to strike or invade Syria.
Assad said that the Syrian government forces had been close to where rebel forces say chemical weapons were used last week. "Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic," Assad stated.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem called on western governments to provide evidence that the government had used chemical weapons.
"I challenge all countries who (are) saying that Syria used chemical weapons to present their evidence to their public opinion," he said.
"I challenge all countries who (are) saying that Syria used chemical weapons to present their evidence to their public opinion," he said.
The White House announced on Tuesday that Barack Obama had still not made a decision about the use of military action, but added that use of ground forces was out of the question. "The options that we are considering are not about regime change," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
