Assad regime has used chemical weapon: US

Following its investigation, backed by similar reports from its allies including Britain and France, the United States has said that the Assad regime in Syria has used chemical weapons on a small scale resulting in death of between 100 to 150 people.
"Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year. Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information," Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor to the US President, said yesterday.

"The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete," he said.
Rhodes said while the lethality of these attacks make up only a small portion of the catastrophic loss of life in Syria, which now stands at more than 90,000 deaths, the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses clear red lines that have existed within the international community for decades.
"We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons. We have no reliable, corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons," he said, adding that the United States would be consulting the international partners and members of the Congress in this regard.

The US President, Barack Obama, he said, has been clear that the use of chemical weapons - or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups - is a red line for the United States, as there has long been an established norm within the international community against the use of chemical weapons.