Syrian rebels reject deal to strip regime of chemical weapons
A Syrian rebel commander criticized the Russian plan for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons to avoid a US-led attack, calling it a “dirty deal.”
The plan “would serve Israel, not the Syrian people,” Col. Abdel-Jabbar al-Oqaidi, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, said in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV on Tuesday.
The rebels are upset that the world only began to mobilize for action after chemical weapons were used, and not because an estimated 100,000 were killed in the civil war, overwhelmingly by conventional weapons.
“All of this shouting in the international community is because of the chemical weapons and not because of Assad’s atrocities against his people using tanks and rocket launchers,” Oqaidi said. He rejected any political solution before President Bashar Assad leaves power.
In a sign of rising frustration within the opposition, Oqaidi complained that its political leadership was not coordinating with the military rebel leadership in the country. The political leaders “represent the countries that nominated them, not the Syrian people,” he said.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Syrian-rebels-reject-deal-to-strip-regime-of-chemical-weapons-325902
Side note - been seeing reports most the afternoon and evening coming in of a Chlorine gas attack in suburb of Damascus.