US sharpens warning on Syria chemical weapons

The United States has warned Syria against using chemical weapons stockpile against its civilians.

A senior White House spokesman said on Monday that the US and its allied intelligence had monitored Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days.

Speaking at a White House briefing, Jay Carney, Press Secretary, said Syrian opposition forces had made strategic progress and were growing stronger.

He said the regime had not been able to stop the progress using conventional weapons, which had heightened US worries.

"We are concerned that an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people," Carney said.

"And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States," he added.

Carney said the Damascus regime should know that the world was watching, and regime members would be held accountable by the US and the international community, if they used chemical weapons or failed to meet their obligations to secure them.



Meanwhile, in the face of escalating security concerns the United Nations and European Union announced on Monday that they were scaling back staff and activities from Syria.

Speaking on Monday, Martin Nesirky, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman told reporters some convoys had been caught in crossfire between Syrian government and rebel forces, including an incident near the airport in which two staff were injured.

He said: "We can confirm that the United Nations in Syria will pull out non-essential international personnel with immediate effect"

"The UN will also suspend its missions within the country until further notice," he added in New York.

The UN said that up to 25 of about 100 foreign staff would leave this week, pointing out that more armoured vehicles were needed after attacks in recent weeks on humanitarian aid convoys and the hijacking of goods or vehicles.

In total, the world body deploys more than 1,000 national and international staff in Syria, but movement and communications have become more difficult due to intensified fighting near the capital and a 48-hour Internet blackout last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The EU diplomatic service has an office in Damascus that has remained open throughout the Syrian crisis so far.

But a spokesman for foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told the Reuters news agency they were cutting back activities in the Syrian capital to a minimum citing security concerns: "The EU delegation has decided to reduce activities in Damascus to a minimum level due to the current security conditions".

In another sign of deteriorating security, an Egyptian commercial jet aborted a trip to Damascus in mid-flight because of violence near the airport.

The EgyptAir flight from Cairo rerouted about 30 minutes after takeoff because Egyptian officials received word from their counterparts in Damascus that the area near the airport was not safe, Egyptian airport officials said.

EgyptAir canceled all further flights to Syria for Monday and Tuesday and will decide later whether to resume flights later in the week, the officials said.

Emirates airlines said on its website that all flights to Syria were suspended "until further notice."