PARIS (AP) — France released an intelligence report on Monday alleging chemical weapons use by Syria's regime that dovetailed with similar U.S. claims, as President Bashar Assad warned that any military strike against his country would spark an uncontrollable regional war and spread "chaos and extremism."

The verbal crossfire, including a rejection of the Western allegations by longtime Syrian ally Russia, was part of frenzied efforts on both sides to court international public opinion after President Barack Obama said he would seek authorization from Congress before launching any military action against Assad's regime.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Assad was quoted as saying that Syria has challenged the U.S. and France to provide proof to support their allegations, but that their leaders "have been incapable of doing that, including before their own peoples."

"If the Americans, the French or the British had a shred of proof, they would have shown it beginning on the first day," he said, deriding Obama as "weak" and having buckled to U.S. domestic political pressure.

"We believe that a strong man is one who prevents war, not one who inflames it," Assad said.

French President Francois Hollande and Obama have been the two world leaders most vocally calling for action against Assad's regime, accusing it of carrying out a deadly chemical attack against rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Aug. 21.

The U.S. said it has proof that the Assad regime is behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. Those numbers are significantly higher than the death toll of 355 provided by the aid group Doctors Without Borders.

It has marked an intolerable escalation in a two-year civil war in Syria that has left some 100,000 people dead.

The Syrian government denies the allegations, and blames opposition fighters. In the Figaro interview, Assad questioned whether an attack took place at all and refused to say whether his forces have chemical weapons, as is widely believed.

If the U.S. and France strike, "Everyone will lose control of the situation ... Chaos and extremism will spread. The risk of a regional war exists," he added.

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To back up its case, the French government published a nine-page intelligence synopsis Monday that concluded Assad's regime had launched an attack on Aug. 21 involving a "massive use of chemical agents," and could carry out similar strikes in the future.

In all, though, the French report provided little new concrete evidence beyond what U.S. officials provided over the weekend in Washington. Along with it, the French Defense Ministry posted on its Web site six clips of amateur video showing victims, some of which has already been widely available online and in the international media.

In the Figaro interview, Assad said "all the accusations are based on allegations of the terrorists and on arbitrary videos posted on the Internet."

The French report made no specific reference to the agencies involved or how the intelligence was collected about the attack, aside from referring to videos of the injured or killed, doctors' accounts, and "independent evaluations" such as one from Paris-based humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders three days after the attack.

A French government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak about the matter because of its sensitivity, said the analysis was written by the spy agency DGSE and the military intelligence unit, DRM, and was based on satellite imagery, video images, and on-the-ground sources — plus samples collected from the alleged chemical attacks in April.

The assessment said it was "very unlikely" that Syria's opposition had falsified images of suffering children that turned up online. It also said intelligence indicated the opposition "does not have the means to conduct such a large attack with chemical agents."

Around the time of the attack, Assad's regime feared a possible opposition strike on Damascus: "Our evaluation is that the regime was looking to loosen the vice and secure the strategic sites for the control of the capital," the report said.

The synopsis also said French intelligence services had collected urine, blood, soil and munitions samples from two attacks in April — in Saraqeb and Jobar — that confirmed the use of sarin gas.

France is "determined to take action against the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar Assad, and to dissuade it from doing so again," Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said after hosting lawmakers to discuss the intelligence on Syria. "This act cannot go without a response."

France won't act alone and Hollande was "continuing his work of persuasion to bring together a coalition," Ayrault said. French parliament will debate the Syria issue Wednesday, but no vote is scheduled. The French constitution doesn't require such a vote for Hollande, though he could decide to call for one.

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Russia, which along with Iran has been a staunch supporter of Assad through the conflict, brushed aside Western evidence of an alleged Syrian regime role.

"What our American, British and French partners showed us in the past and have showed just recently is absolutely unconvincing," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday before the French report was released. "And when you ask for more detailed proof they say all of this is classified, so we cannot show this to you."

"There was nothing specific there, no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals," he said, without identifying which tests.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the U.S. to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress. Two top Russian legislators suggested that to Putin, pointing to polls that have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington received new physical evidence in the form of blood and hair samples that show sarin gas was used in the attack. It wasn't immediately clear whether that evidence had been shared with Russia.

U.N. chemical inspectors toured the stricken areas last week, collecting biological and soil samples. A U.N. statement said the team "worked around the clock" to finalize preparations of the samples, which were shipped Monday afternoon from The Hague and would reach their designated laboratories "within hours," the statement said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned to brief the Security Council's 10 non-permanent members on the Syria crisis Tuesday morning. Angela Kane, high representative for disarmament affairs, planned a Tuesday briefing for member states that requested the investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in the Ghouta area outside Damascus on Aug. 21.

The Obama administration has failed to bring together a broad international coalition in support of military action, having so far only secured the support of France.

Britain's Parliament narrowly voted against the country's participation in any military strike last week, despite appeals by Prime Minister David Cameron. The Arab League has stopped short of endorsing a Western strike against Syria.

In an emergency meeting Sunday, the 22-state League urged the United Nations and the international community to take "deterrent" measures under international law to stop the Syrian regime's crimes. Russia or China would likely veto any U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning a Western strike against Syria.

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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Ryan Lucas and Karin Laub in Beirut, and Jamey Keaten and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.

Assad threatens West with 'repercussions'

Syria's president says a U.S. or French attack would have negative effects and calls the Middle East a "powder keg."
'Everybody will lose control'

President Barack Obama speaks next to Vice President Joe Biden (L) at the Rose Garden of the White House August 31, 2013, in Washington. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

By Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After putting a decision to launch military strikes on Syria into the hands of Congress, President Barack Obama is doing what his critics have long accused him of failing to do: reaching out, personally and aggressively, to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

While top lieutenants including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry lobby their former congressional colleagues, Obama is making individual calls himself to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to press his case for action.

What Obama has not done since he made his announcement on Saturday is appeal to the public, which both Democrats and Republicans say will be crucial as polls show little enthusiasm for U.S. military action anywhere.

The stakes for the president are high - and the arguments being made in support of a 'yes' vote from Congress are making them even higher.

A vote against strikes to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for alleged use of chemical weapons, officials argue, could undermine Obama's standing in the Middle East as his administration seeks to deter Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians and stabilize a region already in turmoil.

"A rejection of this resolution would be catastrophic, not just for him but for the institution of the presidency and the credibility of the United States," Senator John McCain said after meeting with Obama at the White House on Monday.

Mindful of those stakes, the White House has employed a "flood the zone" strategy, according to an administration official, using an American football term for an offensive move where players flood an area of the field to overwhelm the opposing team's defenders.

The evidence of that strategy: an onslaught of briefings, calls and meetings with lawmakers from both political parties.

On Monday National Security adviser Susan Rice, Kerry, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the top U.S. military officer, Martin Dempsey, held an unclassified briefing call for Democratic House members, and Obama met with McCain and fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

On Tuesday Obama will meet with the chairs of key national security committees in Congress and Kerry, Dempsey, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will testify to the Senate foreign relations committee.

"In all calls and briefings, we will be making the same fundamental case: The failure to take action against Assad unravels the deterrent impact of the international norm against chemical weapons use," a senior administration official said.

"It risks emboldening Assad and his key allies - Hezbollah and Iran - who will see that there are no consequences for such a flagrant violation of an international norm. Anyone who is concerned about Iran and its efforts in the region should support this action," he said.

CONSULTATION, AFTER THE FACT

Obama has stepped up his interactions with lawmakers this year, holding dinners and building relationships that critics say he lacked.

But any goodwill he has obtained from that effort is limited, and one Republican aide noted on Monday that Obama had only come to Congress after already articulating a decision that strikes were necessary.

"They're certainly doing more, but it's after the fact. They already made a decision on what they want to do," a senior Senate Republican aide told Reuters.

Running parallel to the White House contacts with Congress are conversations that senior Democratic and Republican senators are holding in an attempt to get a resolution passed in the full Senate.

The aide said the Democratic chairmen of relevant Senate committees were consulting with the highest-ranking Republicans on those panels to try to work out language that could pass the Senate next week.

Passage in the Republican-controlled House remains much more problematic, with lawmakers expressing skepticism about U.S. involvement in another war as well as the effectiveness of the limited strikes that Obama has proposed.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Fred Barbash and Cynthia Osterman)

(This story was refiled to fix day of announcement in the third paragraph)

Obama's 'flood the zone' strategy on Syria

The president is doing what his critics have accused him of failing to do: Personally reaching out.
Briefings, calls, meetings

JERUSALEM (AP) — Behind an official wall of silence, Israel is signaling it wants the U.S. to strike Syria sooner rather than later, fearing that continued inaction could hurt American credibility in the region.

Yet at the same time, Israel appears to have little desire to see Syrian President Bashar Assad toppled, on the theory that a familiar foe is preferable to some of those who might replace him, especially the Islamist extremists who are increasingly powerful in the rebellion.

These contradictory forces have put Israel in a delicate position as the U.S. contemplates military action. In public, Israeli leaders have said little about President Barack Obama's handling of the Syria crisis. But following his decision over the weekend to postpone military action by seeking the backing of Congress, the signs of confusion and consternation appear clear.

"I have full faith in President Obama's moral and operational stance. I recommend patience," President Shimon Peres said in a radio interview Monday, seeking to calm a nervous public. "I am confident that the United States will respond in the right way to Syria."

Israeli leaders have been careful about voicing their thoughts about what the U.S. should do, wary of creating any perception that they are meddling in either American politics or the civil war in neighboring Syria.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked a junior Cabinet minister who publicly criticized Obama. In a radio interview, Housing Minister Uri Ariel compared the American foot-dragging to Western inaction during the Holocaust. He also said American inaction sent a message to terrorists and hostile governments that there was no price to pay for using nonconventional weapons.

Netanyahu ordered his Cabinet to keep their opinions to themselves, stressing the need to behave "responsibly" at such a sensitive time.

But in a meeting last week with the visiting French foreign minister, Netanyahu himself called for a tough response to Syria, saying the world's reaction to the use of chemical weapons would have deeper implications for the international handling of Iran's nuclear program.

Israel, along with many Western countries, believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and Netanyahu has repeatedly raised concerns that international pressure to curb the Iranian nuclear program has been insufficient.

"Assad's regime has become a full Iranian client and Syria has become Iran's testing ground," Netanyahu said. "Now the whole world is watching. Iran is watching and it wants to see what would be the reaction on the use of chemical weapons."

For this reason, many Israelis reacted with disappointment after Obama announced over the weekend that he would seek a congressional vote before a use of force against Assad. Israeli newspapers and commentators criticized the American leader for appearing weak and indecisive.

"You can't count on someone who isn't sure of himself," said Hanna Tzikli, a resident of northern Israel.

Israelis have expressed their desire for American action with a mixture of moral and strategic concerns. Watching civilians die from poisonous gas is painful in a country built on the ashes of the Holocaust, in which the Nazis sent countless Jewish victims to their deaths in gas chambers.

It has also sharpened concerns that Assad might one day use these weapons on Israel. Special gas-mask distribution centers have been flooded with nervous people in recent days seeking to get their protection kits.

"If he used chemical weapons against his own people, he'd have no problem using them against others," said Oded Eran, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.

Still, the operating assumption appears to be that a U.S. strike would not necessarily precipitate a Syrian reprisal against Israel. With Assad believed to be gaining the upper hand in the war, Israeli decision makers suspect he would be careful not to weaken his military by opening up a new front against a strong rival.

Israeli lawmaker Nachman Shai said American credibility was on the line since Obama long ago said that Syria's use of chemical weapons was a "red line" that could not be crossed. Similarly, Obama has promised Israel that he will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

"We are watching America carefully. We rely on America on all fields of life, especially now when it comes to Iran," said Shai, a former chief military spokesman who now sits on parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "We need to know that on D-Day we have America next to us."

Shai, a member of the opposition Labor Party, nonetheless praised Netanyahu's handling of the crisis so far. While Israel has a clear interest in how America responds in Syria, he said it is essential Israel avoid any perception of interfering in American decision-making.

Israel has not taken sides in the Syrian conflict, and Shai said it has no interest in doing so now. He said any American attack should deliver a "strong message" to Assad but should not seek to change the course of the fighting or oust the Syrian leader.

If Israel could be guaranteed that Assad would be replaced by a stable government that controlled the entire territory and the myriad of groups operating within it, it may be inclined to wish for his ouster, Eran said. But even though Syria and Israel are bitter enemies, the Assad family has kept the Israel front quiet for nearly all of the past 40 years — and many Israelis view Assad, a known quantity, as preferable to the Islamist factions, some of which are affiliated with al-Qaida, trying to oust him.

"It's hard to identify who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Probably they are all bad guys," Shai said. "The interest of Israel is that no one will attack Israel and we will not be involved in any way."

Israel in a delicate position on Syria

Israeli leaders have been careful about weighing in on what the U.S. should do against the Assad regime.
The top concerns

By Dan Williams and Steve Gutterman

JERUSALEM/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Israel tested a U.S.-backed missile system in the Mediterranean on Tuesday but did not announce the launch in advance, prompting a disclosure by Russia that kept the world on edge as the United States weighed an attack on Syria.

The morning launch was first reported by Moscow media that quoted Russian defense officials as saying two ballistic "objects" had been fired eastward from the center of the sea - roughly in the direction of Syria.

The news ruffled financial markets until Israel's Defence Ministry said that it, along with a Pentagon team, had carried out a test-launch of a Sparrow missile. The Sparrow, which simulates the long-range missiles of Syria and Iran, is used for target practice by Israel's U.S.-backed ballistic shield Arrow.

"Israel routinely fires missiles or drones off its shores to test its own ballistic defense capabilities," a U.S. official said in Washington.

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Western naval forces have been gathering in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea since President Bashar al-Assad was accused of carrying out an August 21 gas attack in his more than two-year-old conflict with rebels trying to topple him.

Damascus denies responsibility for the incident. U.S. President Barack Obama had been widely expected to order reprisal strikes on Syria last week but put them off to seek support from Washington lawmakers first.

With U.S. action on Syria delayed as Obama confers with Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to play up the Jewish state's ability to deal with its foes alone. On Tuesday, the rightist premier spoke of anti-missile systems as a national "wall of iron".

"These things give us the power to protect ourselves, and anyone who considers harming us would do best not to," he said in a speech.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon shrugged off a question from reporters on whether the launch might have been ill-timed. He said Israel had to work to maintain its military edge and "this necessitates field trials and, accordingly, a successful trial was conducted to test our systems. And we will continue to develop and to research and to equip the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) with the best systems in the world."

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Arrow designer Uzi Rabin said tests of the anti-missile system are planned "long, long in advance" and generally go unnoticed. "What apparently made the difference today is the high state of tension over Syria and Russia's unusual vigilance," he told Reuters.

A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman quoted by the Interfax news agency said the launch was picked up by an early warning radar station at Armavir, near the Black Sea, which is designed to detect missiles from Europe and Iran.

RIA, another Russian news agency, later quoted a source in Syria's "state structures" as saying the objects had fallen harmlessly into the sea.

The Russian Defence Ministry declined comment to Reuters.

Moscow is Assad's big-power ally and has mobilized its own navy in the face of U.S. military preparations to punish the Syrian government for its alleged killing of more than 1,400 people in the chemical strike in an embattled Damascus suburb.

Syria, Israel Respond to President Obama's Stateme …Play video."

OUTSIDE INTERVENTION

Russia opposes any outside military intervention in Syria's civil war and says it suspects the gassings were staged by rebels seeking foreign involvement in the conflict.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin of the launch but it was not immediately clear how he reacted.

Brent crude oil extended gains to rise by more than $1 per barrel and Dubai's share index fell after Russia said it detected the launches.

Five U.S. destroyers and an amphibious ship are in the Mediterranean, poised for possible strikes against Syria with cruise missiles - which are not ballistic. U.S. officials said the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and four other ships in its strike group moved into the Red Sea on Monday.

Fear Growing in the Middle East Over Syria, Gas Ma …Play video."

"The pressure being applied by the United States causes particular concern," Itar-Tass quoted Russian Defence Ministry official Oleg Dogayev as saying. He said "the dispatch of ships armed with cruise missiles toward Syria's shores has a negative effect on the situation in the region".

The United States sees its underwriting of the Arrow as a means of reassuring Israel and, by extension, of reducing the chance that its ally might launch unilateral attacks on Syria or Iran that could destabilize the wider region.

Netanyahu has reluctantly supported U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program. He has been circumspect about the Western showdown with Syria, worrying that should Assad fall to Islamist-led rebels, they could prove more hostile to the Jewish state.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman and Dan Williams, Editing by Timothy Heritage/Mark Heinrich)

Israeli-U.S. missile test raises alarm

A joint Mediterranean operation between the two countries caused panic for Russia over a possible attack on Syria.
No explosions in Damascus

BEIRUT (AP) — The number of refugees fleeing Syria's violence has surpassed the 2 million mark, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, as top U.S. officials prepared to argue before a key Senate committee for a punitive strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Earlier, the U.S. administration won backing from French intelligence and reportedly also from Germany's spy agency for its claim that Assad's forces were responsible for suspected chemical weapons attacks on rebel-held areas near Damascus that are believed to have killed hundreds of Syrian civilians.

A nine-page intelligence synopsis published by the French government Monday concluded that the regime launched the Aug. 21 attacks involving a "massive use of chemical agents" and could carry out similar strikes in the future.

In Germany, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) also believes Assad's regime was behind the attacks. On its website, the magazine reported that BND head Gerhard Schindler recently told top government officials in a secret briefing that while the evidence is not absolutely conclusive, an "analysis of plausibility" supports the idea of the Syrian government as the perpetrator.

The Assad regime has denied using chemical weapons, blaming rebels instead. Neither the U.S. nor Syria and its allies have presented conclusive proof in public.

The Obama administration insists it has a strong case against the Assad regime and that chemical weapons use must not go unpunished. Last week, President Barack Obama appeared poised to authorize military strikes, but unexpectedly stepped back to first seek approval from Congress, which returns from summer recess next week.

Since then, the administration has relentlessly lobbied Congress for support in the most important foreign policy vote since the Iraq war a decade ago. Members of Obama's national security and intelligence teams have been holding classified, closed-door briefings for members of Congress. More sessions were scheduled for Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Also Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are to testify publicly before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obama, meanwhile, is to meet with leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees, the foreign relations committees and the intelligence committees.

The Syria conflict erupted in March 2011 with a popular uprising against Assad that quickly escalated into a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.

The U.N. refugee agency announced Tuesday that the number of Syrians who have fled the country has surpassed the 2 million mark.

Along with more than four million people displaced inside Syria, this means more than six million Syrians have been uprooted, out of an estimated population of 23 million.

Antonio Guterres, the head of the Office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Syria is hemorrhaging an average of almost 5,000 citizens a day across its borders, many of them with little more than the clothes they are wearing. Nearly 1.8 million refugees have fled in the past 12 months alone, he said.

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The agency's special envoy, Angelina Jolie, said "some neighboring countries could be brought to the point of collapse" if the situation keeps deteriorating at its current pace. Most Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Despite the grim toll, Assad has not shown any signs of backing down.

Assad and some in his inner circle are from Syria's minority Alawites, or followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, who believe they would not have a place in Syria if the rebels win. Most of those trying to topple Assad are Sunni Muslims, with Islamic militants, including those linked to the al-Qaida terror network, increasingly dominant among the rebels.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, Assad challenged the West to present proof of his regime's alleged involvement in the purported chemical weapons attacks.

"If the Americans, the French or the British had a shred of proof, they would have shown it beginning on the first day," he said, deriding Obama as "weak" and having buckled to U.S. domestic political pressure.

"We believe that a strong man is one who prevents war, not one who inflames it," Assad said.

However, the German intelligence assessment, as reported by Der Spiegel, said only the Assad regime would have been capable of launching the attacks.

Kerry has said the U.S. has evidence the nerve agent sarin was used in the attacks. Schindler, the German intelligence chief, said in his briefing that only the regime has sarin at its disposal and that only experts of the regime could mix the agents and use them with small rockets, Der Spiegel wrote.

The BND believes the regime has used chemical weapons before, but that a more diluted mix was used in the earlier attacks, the magazine wrote. Schindler raised the possibility that a more toxic mix may have been inadvertently loaded into the shells fired on Aug. 21 on rebel-held areas west and east of Damascus, Der Spiegel reported.

The German spy agency also intercepted a phone call in which a senior official from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah told Iranian diplomats that Assad had miscalculated by ordering the sarin attack, Der Spiegel said. Hezbollah and Iran are Assad allies.

The U.S. claims that at least 1,429 people were killed in the Aug. 21 attacks, including more than 400 children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.

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Heilprin reported from Geneva. Robert H. Reid in Berlin contributed to this report.