US intel heard Syrian army on chemical weapons: Report

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

Free Syrian Army rebels escort UN vehicles during their visit to one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Zamalka. REUTERS photo

US intelligence services overheard a Syrian Defense Ministry official in “panicked phone calls with the leader of a chemical weapons unit” after last week’s deadly chemical attack, Foreign Policy magazine reported Aug. 27.

“Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people,” the report said.
 
“Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services,” the magazine said in a statement. “That is the major reason why American officials now say they’re certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.”