Obama Silent on US Arms to Syrian Rebels
June 19, 2013
by VOA News
U.S. President Barack Obama says Syria's government has lost its legitimacy by killing tens of thousands of its citizens in a bloody civil war, but he refused to describe the type of military support Washington will provide rebel forces.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama said reports the United States is heading into a new Middle East war in Syria are exaggerated.
He reiterated his view that President Bashar al-Assad's government had used chemical weapons, while acknowledging that Russia was skeptical on this point. Obama called for the United Nations to do "a serious investigation" into chemical weapons use.
Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said anti-government rebels seized an army checkpoint on the Ariha-Latakia stretch of an international highway that goes through Syria's largest city, Aleppo, to the Turkish border.
Other rebel groups said opposition forces had seized three checkpoints and needed to capture three more to cut army access to the M5 highway.
Observatory head Rami Abdelrahman said a successful rebel campaign could sever all ground supply routes into northern Syria from the Mediterranean coast, where many of the country's most fortified military sites are located.
In the port city of Latakia, part of Assad's coastal stronghold where rebel attacks have been rare, opposition and state media said an arms store on a military site had exploded.
Also Wednesday, Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters clashed with rebel forces south of a Damascus suburb that is home to a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine.
Syrian media said government forces were able to push rebels out of one neighborhood near the ornate Sayida Zeinab shrine.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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