Leaked Iranian letter warned US that Syrian rebels have chemical weapons
Syrian President Assad's strongest international backer, Iran, said it has warned the US about chemical weapons in rebel hands for more than a year.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / September 9, 2013
Istanbul
As a primary backer of the Syrian government, Iran has argued vehemently against US airstrikes, warned that sectarian "fire" will spread, and that jihadi rebels may have been behind the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack that US officials say killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
According to leaked diplomatic correspondence, Iran has been warning Washington since July 2012 that Sunni rebel fighters have acquired chemical weapons, and called on the US to send “an immediate and serious warning” to rebel groups not to use them.
In a letter acquired by The Christian Science Monitor that was sent sometime in the spring, Iran told American officials that, as a "supporter" of the rebels, the US would be held responsible for any rebel use of chemical weapons.
Iran amplified those year-old warnings over the weekend in its strongest public comments to date linking the rebels with a chemical weapons, echoing Russia's dismissal of American assurances that President Bashar al-Assad's forces were to blame. The comments come as the US Congress prepares to vote on military strikes.
“There is ample intelligence that takfiri [extremist] groups are in possession of chemical arms,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday during a visit to Iraq, according to state-run PressTV.
“Extremists and takfiris are a threat to the whole region.” Semi-official Fars News Agency headlined its story: “Iranian FM refutes US claims on Syria’s use of chemical weapons.”
Multiple warnings
Iran says that it warned the United States directly, in mid- and late- 2012, and at least once after that, about the risks of chemical weapons among the rebels. The letter acquired by the Monitor references messages from July 18 and Dec. 1, 2012.
According to the English translation that accompanies the one-page Persian document, the letter reads: “Alerting [worrying] news has been published about the preparations of insurgent forces in Syria for using chemical weapons/elements."
Iran “holds responsible, in addition to the elements of violent forces, their supporter countries including the American government, for any resort to chemical weapons/elements by those insurgent forces,” it states.
The letter makes no reference to the possibility of chemical weapons use by Syria itself – holder of the world’s third-largest chemical arsenal. Nor does it acknowledge that if the same argument was applied to the regime, then Iran and Russia, Syria's closest supporters, would likewise be held responsible for any regime use of chemical weapons.
The Iranian letter is undated and was produced by the previous government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to informed sources in Iran who provided a copy to the Monitor on the condition that they not be further identified.
A US State Department official would not verify the authenticity of the letter as a matter of policy, stating: “We don’t comment on diplomatic correspondence.”
Neither the Persian and English versions of the letter seen by the Monitor have any official letterhead or other identifying marks, but that is not unheard of with sensitive Iranian communications. The grand bargain offer sent by Tehran to the White House in 2003, for example, looked similarly “clean” – authentic and with approval from Iran’s highest authorities, yet with no sign of that on the document itself.
Consistent opposition
Since the Aug. 21 attack, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated their opposition to chemical weapons use by any side – a policy that has been consistent since Iran was targeted by chemical munitions repeated in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. But they has sent mixed messages about who they believe was responsible for this attack on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.
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