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Syria Fires Scud Missiles at Insurgents, U.S. Says Syria Fires Scud Missiles at Insurgents, U.S. Says
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebel fighters in recent days, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday. WASHINGTON — President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have resorted to firing ballistic missiles at rebel fighters inside Syria, Obama administration officials said Wednesday, escalating a nearly two-year-old civil war as the government struggles to slow the momentum of a gaining insurgency.
 The move represents a significant escalation in the fighting, which has already killed more than 40,000 civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict that has threatened to destabilize the Middle East, and suggests increased desperation on the part of the Assad government. A fresh wave of mayhem struck the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, reports from the region said, including a deadly triple bombing outside the Interior Ministry. One American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing classified information, said that missiles had been fired from the Damascus area at targets in northern Syria. Administration officials said that over the last week, Assad forces for the first time had fired at least six Soviet-designed Scud missiles that carry warheads in the latest bid to push back rebels who have consistently chipped away at the government’s military superiority.
 “The total is number is probably north of six now,” said another American official, adding that the targets were in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed insurgent group. In a conflict that has already killed more than 40,000 Syrians, the government has been forced to shift from reliance on troops to artillery, to airpower and now to missiles as the rebels have taken over military bases and closed in on the capital, Damascus. The escalation has not changed Washington’s decision to avoid military intervention in Syria — as long as chemical weapons are not used — but it did prompt a rebuke from Washington.
It is not clear how many casualties resulted from the attacks by the Scuds — a class of Soviet-era missiles with a range of nearly 200 miles, made famous by Saddam Hussein of Iraq during the first Persian Gulf war when he lobbed them at Israel. But it appeared to be the first time that the Assad government had fired the missiles at targets inside Syria. “As the regime becomes more and more desperate, we see it resorting to increased lethality and more vicious weapons moving forward, and we have in recent days seen missiles deployed,” said Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman.
American officials did not say how they had monitored the missile firings, but American intelligence has been closely following developments in Syria through aerial surveillance and other methods, partly out of concern that Mr. Assad may resort to the use of chemical weapons in the conflict. President Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” implying that it might lead to an American military response.
The Obama administration views the Assad government’s use of Scud missiles as a “significant escalation” of the conflict, said a senior official. It also shows, he said, the increasing pressure on Mr. Assad, since Scuds are primarily defensive weapons, being used by the government offensively against a counterinsurgency. Mr. Assad’s decision to fire Scuds — not known for their precision — inside his own country appears directly related to the rebel ability to take command of military bases and seize antiaircraft weapons. The Scuds have been fired since Monday from the An Nasiriyah Air Base, north of Damascus, according to American officials familiar with the classified intelligence reports about the attacks. The target was the Sheikh Suleiman base north of Aleppo that rebel forces had occupied.
 “Using Scuds to target tanks or military bases is one thing,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Using them to target rebels hiding in playgrounds at schools is something else.” The development may also represent a calculation by the Syrian leadership that it can resort to such lethal weapons without the fear of international intervention, partly because Washington had set its tolerance threshold at the use of chemical weapons. Mr. Obama has never suggested that the United States would take action to stop attacks against Syrian rebels and civilians with conventional weapons, no matter how severe.
Among other repercussions the Obama administration fears is the possibility that Mr. Assad’s military could fire Scuds near, or over, the border with Turkey, which has become one of the Syrian president’s most ardent foes. “This may be another example of the unintended consequence of the red line the administration has drawn with regard to chemical weapons,” said Joseph Holliday, a former Army intelligence officer and a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a nongovernmental research group. “Assad views every weapon short of chemicals as fair game.”
Military experts said the Assad government’s use of Scuds might reflect worries that its aircraft have been vulnerable to rebel air defenses. In recent weeks, rebel forces have captured Syrian military bases, seized air-defense weapons and used some of them to fire at Syria warplanes. But one expert said that the government may have decided to use large missiles in order to wipe out military bases — and the arsenals they hold — that had been taken over by the opposition. The disclosure about the Scuds came as representatives of more than 100 nations gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco, for a conference intended to give a political boost to the Syrian opposition, which is formally known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. And it came amid an increase in violence in Syria, including reports of a new massacre of about 100 Alawites, Mr. Assad’s sect, and a massive bombing in the capital.
 The Obama administration has yet to comment publicly on the missile attacks, but a senior administration official alluded to the development in a briefing for reporters on Tuesday. Mr. Obama, in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News, formally recognized the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
 “The Syrian regime has used aircraft,” the administration official said. “It has used artillery, and it appears that it has even used missile to attack the Syrian population and to attack what was a peaceful protest movement.” William Burns, the deputy secretary of state who led the American team to the Morocco gathering, said on Wednesday that he had invited opposition leaders to Washington, including Sheik Admad Moaz al-Khatib, the coalition leader.
There have been other indications of Syrian government use of missiles. The Local Coordinating Committees, an antigovernment activist network in Syria, reported from its Damascus office in an e-mail late Tuesday that “Regime forces are firing land missiles that are capable of carrying chemical warheads.” The group did not elaborate on what the missiles were or where the information had originated. Mr. Khatib, however, took issue with a decision by the Obama administration to classify Al Nusra Front — one of several armed groups fighting Mr. Assad — as a foreign terrorist organization.
 The developments came as representatives of more than 100 countries and organizations that support the anti-Assad movement met in Morocco and endorsed a newly formed insurgent coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. President Obama formally acknowledged that coalition, known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News. “The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime as a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider,” Mr. Khatib said. “We can differ with parties that adopt political ideas and visions different from ours. But we ensure that the goal of all rebels is the fall of the regime.”
But the leader of the coalition took issue with a decision by the Obama administration to classify Al Nusra Front — one of several armed groups fighting Mr. Assad — as a foreign terrorist organization and urged the United States to review that decision. Obama administration officials have said that the Nusra Front is an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorist group that has sought to foment sectarian violence there and topple the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
The coalition leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, said, “The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime is a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider.” “All of us have seen what Al Qaeda in Iraq tried to do to threaten the social fabric of Iraq,” Mr. Burns said at a news conference. “And that’s not a future that the vast majority of Syrians want to see, and it’s certainly not a future that the international community supports.”
He also said: “We love our country. We can differ with parties that adopt political ideas and visions different from ours. But we ensure that the goal of all rebels is the fall of the regime.” Mr. Burns spoke after a declaration recognizing the new coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people was adopted at the Morocco gathering. It also called on Mr. Assad to “stand aside” to permit a “sustainable political transition.”
He was speaking after the Moroccan organizers of the conference said a declaration recognizing the new coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people had been adopted by the 114 representatives at the gathering. News reports said the draft declaration adopted by the meeting also called on Mr. Assad to “stand aside” to permit a “sustainable political transition.” In Damascus on Wednesday, a car bomb and two other explosives went off outside the Interior Ministry headquarters — known as the House of Justice — in Kafar Souseh, on the southern outskirts, Syrian state media reported. Two Lebanese television channels that favor the Syrian government reported that there had been casualties. One channel, Mayadin, reported that the interior minister, Mohammad al Shaar, had been wounded, but other accounts said he had escaped unharmed.
The document also warned against any use by government forces of chemical or biological weapons, saying such action would be met by a “serious response.” The Syrian authorities have denied that they will use chemical weapons against their own people.
In Damascus on Wednesday, a car bomb and two other explosives went off outside the Interior Ministry headquarters — known as the House of Justice — in Kafar Souseh, on the southern outskirts, Syrian state media reported. Two Lebanese television channels that favor the Syrian government reported that there had been casualties. One channel, Mayadin, reported that the interior minister, Mohammad al Shaar, had been wounded, but other accounts said he had escaped unharmed. The other channel, Al Manar, run by the Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah, reported that four people were killed and 20 wounded.
An activist in Damascus, Abu Qays, said Syrian security forces had sealed off Shami Hospital, a central Damascus facility used by Syria’s elite, in a possible indication of high-profile casualties in the blasts.An activist in Damascus, Abu Qays, said Syrian security forces had sealed off Shami Hospital, a central Damascus facility used by Syria’s elite, in a possible indication of high-profile casualties in the blasts.
The Kafar Souseh area has been heavily contested between security forces and rebels. Video posted on the Internet from the scene by Syrian activists showed several burned-out cars. A 67 year-old resident of Kafar Souseh, reached by telephone, said the explosion “shook the windows of my house.” But it was the Scud attacks that caught the attention of American intelligence experts. Scuds are capable of carrying chemical weapons, though American officials stressed that none had been used in the recent strikes.
Government forces and rebels have been clashing for two weeks around Damascus as rebels try to take control of the airport road and security forces try to seal off the capital from a semicircle of increasingly rebel-held towns reaching from the northeast to southwest of Damascus’s suburban sprawl  NATO recently approved the deployment of American, Dutch and Germany Patriot antimissile batteries to Turkey, a Syria neighbor that has become one of Mr. Assad’s most ardent foes, to protect against a possible Syrian missile attack. The Patriot batteries have not yet arrived in Turkey, and it may take weeks for them to get there.

Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Washington; Aida Alami from Marrakesh, Morocco; Alan Cowell from London; Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon, and Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

An American official said that the Syrian brigade that controls and operates the Scuds was an all-Alawite team. “There’s tremendous sensitivity about that weapon system, so Assad keeps it in the hand of his most trusted agents,” he said.
It is not clear whether all of the Scuds struck the base they were aimed at or what casualties they might have caused. But there was military logic to the move, experts said.
“The Assad regime has consistently escalated its use of force whenever the rebels’ strength has presented a significant challenge to the regime, Mr. Holliday said.
“In January 2012, the regime started to use artillery because the rebels learned how to defend against regime ground forces,” he added. “The regime started using its air power in June because the rebels had gained control of the countryside. Now that the rebels have begun to defeat Assad’s air force and overrun his bases, it shouldn’t be surprising that the regime is responding with Scuds.”

Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Washington; Aida Alami from Marrakesh, Morocco; Alan Cowell from London; Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon; and Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.