• Fighting reported near suspected chemical weapons site in Syria

    By Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters

    AMMAN, Jordan — Fighting erupted in Damascus on Sunday near a complex linked to Syria's chemical weapons program, on the third day of an offensive by President Bashar al-Assad's forces aimed at driving rebels from main sectors of the capital, activists said.

    The fighting occurred near the Scientific Studies and Research Center on the foothills of Qasioun Mountain in the northern Barzeh district, opposition sources said from Damascus.

    Barzeh is one of several working class neighborhoods that have turned into footholds for opposition brigades, who have infiltrated Damascus from swathes of farmland dotted with built-up areas on the outskirts of Damascus known as al-Ghouta.

    The rebels lack the firepower to breach the heavily fortified Research Centre complex and the compound is being used to shell Barzeh, the sources said.

    The U.S. administration said last week that Assad's forces had probably used chemical arms in the conflict and congressional pressure has mounted on the White House to do more to help the rebels.


    Republican senators on Sunday pressed President Barack Obama to intervene, saying America could attack Syrian air bases with missiles but should not send in ground troops.

    Related: McCain: Obama should be prepared to act on Syria

    Neutralizing Assad's air advantage over the rebels "could turn the tide of battle pretty quickly," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told a CBS news programme.

    In Barzeh at least nine people were killed and 70 were wounded in the last three days, mostly from army shelling. The district is home to a military hospital, hit by rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds on Sunday, and an electronic eavesdropping facility, as well as a military police compound and another army unit, the sources said.

    Syrian warplanes bombed on Sunday the adjacent district of Qaboun, through which Barzeh is being supplied from the Ghouta. There were no immediate reports of casualties, according to activists in the neighborhood.

    The Syrian official state news agency said "units of the heroic Syrian army have inflicted heavy losses on terrorists" in Barzeh, eastern Damascus and Ghouta.

    Speaking form Barzeh, opposition activist Abu Ammar said the research center was the only military facility in Barzeh that the rebels have not managed to hit. He added that a chemical weapons storage facility is located near the center "It is very heavily fortified and there are heavy caliber anti-aircraft guns deployed in the complex and in large tracts of land that are part of it," he said.

    He said opposition fighters in Barzeh repulsed an attack on their strongholds in the district from the adjacent Ush al-Warwar area, part of several hilltop enclaves inhabited by Assad's minority Alawite sect.

    "Barzeh has been besieged for the last fifty days; with a narrow supply line to Ghouta through Qaboun," Abu Ammar said.

    "Fighting has intensified in the last three days and the regime sent down his militia today from Ush al-Warwar but the fighters forced them to turn back," he added.

    Activists reported fighting in the nearby district of Jobar to the south, where an air strike near a mosque set off a huge plume of white smoke, according to video footage taken by the opposition, as fighting continued across the Ghouta.

    The army seized the town of Otaiba, near the Damascus International Airport, in Ghouta last week, cutting a weapons supply route into the eastern fringes of Damascus that rebels had used for eight months.

    Syria's uprising is the bloodiest and longest of Arab revolts that erupted more than two years ago.

    It began with peaceful protests against Assad that were met with force, sparking armed opposition and eventually civil war pitting Assad's minority Alawite sect against the Sunni Muslim majority.

    The army appears to have made gains in the north and center of the country in recent weeks.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Israel: No proof chemical weapon was used in Syria

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    JERUSALEM - Israel voiced doubt on Tuesday about claims that chemical weapons had been used against rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

    Activists on Monday claimed civilians had suffered injuries consistent with exposure to some kind of poisonous gas.

    "We have seen reports from the opposition. It is not the first time. The opposition has an interest in drawing in international military intervention," Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Army Radio.

    "As things stand now, we do not have any confirmation or proof that (chemical weapons) have already been used, but we are definitely following events with concern," he said.

    Syria activists: Several die after Assad's forces use 'poisonous gases'

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts on Sunday of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs. The reports are difficult to verify, as the government restricts media access in Syria.

    The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across Syria, said those accounts spoke of six rebel fighters who died after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground. It said it could not confirm that poison gas had been used and called for an investigation.

    Syria has said it would never use chemical weapons against its citizens.

    Asked about images purported to show patients being treated for possible gas poisoning, Yaalon said: "I'm not sure that what we're seeing in the photos is the result of the use of chemical weapons.

    "It could be other things," he said, without elaborating.

    On Sunday, senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad said Syria's chemical weapons were still secure despite the fact that Assad had lost control of parts of the country.

    As Syria's southern neighbor, Israel has been concerned about chemical weapons falling into the hands of Islamist militants or Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, cautioning it could intervene to stop such developments. 

    Earlier this month, President Barack Obama warned Assad that the use of chemical weapons by his regime would be "totally unacceptable.""If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable," he said.

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  • A first? Helicopter gunships bombard Syrian capital

    AFP - Getty Images

    An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on Sunday shows smoke billowing a neighborhood inDamascus.

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    Helicopter gunships bombarded several districts of Syria's capital in an effort to drive out insurgents, as rebels battled President Bashar Assad's forces near the main intelligence base in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, witnesses said.

    "Helicopters are fiercely shelling the northern quarter of Barzeh with rockets and machine guns," an NBC News contact in Damascus said. "They're flying over my head. The shelling is the first of [its] kind ever witnessed in Damascus."

    Residents and opposition activists told Reuters that Syria's elite Fourth Division troops were besieging the northern neighborhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire.  Rebels were also driven from Mezze, the diplomatic district of Damascus, they said. 

    The eye-witness report came even as Syrian state television quoted a media source denying that helicopters had fired on the capital. "The situation in Damascus is normal, but the security forces are pursuing the remnants of the terrorists in some streets," it said.

    The fourth division is run by Assad's younger brother, Maher Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family's four decades of Alawite minority rule.

    Government troops launched an offensive against opposition forces in Syria days after rebels killed some of President Assad's top deputies. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    UN extends Syria observer mission as fighting continues

    His role has become more crucial since Assad's defense and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of a "Damascus volcano" by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

    Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing. Diplomats and opposition sources said government forces were focusing on strategic centers, with one Western diplomat comparing Assad to a doctor "abandoning the patient's limbs to save the organs."

    Fighting also raged in parts of Aleppo -- the country's main commercial and industrial hub -- and in Deir al-Zor on the Euprhates river, the largest city in the east.  

    London School of Economics Professor Fawaz Gerges discusses what we know about the bomber who killed seven, including five Israeli tourists and himself, then analyzes whether the fall of Syria's President Assad is close.

    Death toll hits 19,000
    The news of the worsening violence came as an activist group said the death toll had hit more than 19,000 since anti-Assad protests slid into violent clashes in March 2011.

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says if the current pace of killing continues through the end of July, it will be the deadliest month since the Syrian uprising erupted.

    NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin answers your questions about Syria

    Observatory chief Rami Abdul-Rahman said Sunday that 2,752 people — 1,933 civilians, 738 government troops and 81 rebels — were killed in the first 21 days of July.

    The average daily death toll in June was 94, while this month it has increased to an average of 131 a day. 

    Chemical weapons
    As the violence raged seemingly unabated, the United States said it was closely monitoring Syria's chemical weapons stockpile and is "actively consulting" Damascus's neighbors to stress concerns over the security of those weapons and Syria's responsibility to safeguard them.

    "We believe Syria's chemical weapons stockpile remains under Syrian government control," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said on Saturday. "Given the escalation of violence in Syria and the regime's increasing attacks on their people, we remain very concerned about these weapons."

    Analysts: Russia will be big loser if Assad falls

    That was the White House response to a question about a Syrian military defector's claim that Assad's forces were moving chemical weapons across the country for possible use against the opposition in a military retaliation for the killing of four top security officials.

    "In addition to monitoring their stockpiles, we are actively consulting with Syria's neighbors -- and our friends in the international community -- to underscore our common concern about the security of these weapons, and the Syrian government's obligation to secure them," Vietor said. 

    General Mustafa Sheikh, who defected recently, has said Assad could now rely only on an inner core of loyal army regiments, saying "the collapse of the regime is accelerating like a snowball." 

    Diplomats across the globe voiced their frustrations at the United Nations this morning over the decision by Russia and China to veto a resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on Syria. Amb. Susan Rice discusses.

    But Sheikh also said Assad's forces were transporting chemical weapons across the country for possible use against rebel forces.

    "The regime has started moving its chemical stockpile and redistributing it to prepare for its use," said Sheikh, citing rebel intelligence obtained in recent days.

    His comments could not be verified, but Israel said on Friday it would consider military action if needed to ensure Syrian missiles or chemical weapons did not reach Assad's allies in Lebanon, the Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah.

    "I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that ... (if necessary) ... we will be able to consider carrying out an operation," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. 

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • 16 dead, dozens missing after blast at China chemical plant

    An explosion at a chemical plant in northern China has killed at least 16 people and left dozens more missing. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    BEIJING -- An explosion at a chemical plant in northern China on Tuesday killed at least 16 people, injured more than 40 and left dozens missing.

    Fears of new blasts later halted rescue efforts, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

    The official Xinhua News Agency said that about 100 people were working at the Hebei Zhaoxian Keeper Chemical Co. plant in Hebei province's Zhaoxian county when a workshop was flattened.

    Xinhua quoted Zhaoxian deputy chief Wu Haijiang as saying that rescue work had been stopped due to the risk of explosions.

    China's State Administration of Work Safety said on its website that the blast happened during the production of guanidine nitrate, a high-energy fuel and propellant.

    'I couldn't move any more'
    However, China Daily reported that the plant mainly produces pesticides. It added that the force of the explosion broke windows more than a mile from the site.

    The newspaper quoted worker Li Jianfei, 24, as telling China Central Television that he heard three explosions.

    AP

    Tuesday's blast flattened a workshop at a chemical plant in northern China and shattered windows in surrounding villages.

    "When I crawled out of the workshop, I couldn't move any more," he added. "It was someone else who carried me to the ambulance."

    The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.