Several senators are raising concerns that unrest in Syria could allow that nation's chemical and other weapons to be used against U.S. forces and allies in the region.

"The growing breakdown of order and security in Syria could place its significant stockpiles of poison gases and operational chemical weapons at risk," Maine Republican Susan Collins, New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen wrote in a February 17 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. DOTMIL obtained a copy of the letter.

The United States says it is tracking a Russian military cargo ship as it makes its way to Syria carrying weapons, ammunition and a small number of Russian troops.

U.S. intelligence believes the Russians are sending the ship to help fortify its naval base in Syria as the situation in country continues to spiral out of control, Pentagon officials told CNN Friday.

The presence of the ship was first reporting by NBC News.

Classified U.S. imagery shows the ship, called the Nikolay Filchenkov, began loading in the port of Sevastapol on the Black Sea on June 7 and is headed for the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russians have a naval facility. The port is vital for Russian naval access to the entire Middle East.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-news-agency-reports-joint-syria-iran-russia-and-china-wargames/

The IDF spokesman’s office called the report a “political matter” and declined to comment.

Iran is currently holding talks with six Western powers over the fate of its nuclear program. The talks, said to be held in a tense atmosphere in Moscow, seek to alleviate world concerns that the Islamic Republic is developing nuclear weapons.

Syria meanwhile faces international pressure to end a 15-month crackdown on local rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

China and Russia have come to the aid of both countries in recent months at the UN Security Council, vetoing military intervention in Syria and expanded sanctions on Iran.

Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned. And that is the major reason why American officials now say they're certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime -- and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.

But the intercept raises questions about culpability for the chemical massacre, even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?" 

Eleven Syrian rebel groups, including a powerful al Qaeda affiliate, have rejected the Western-backed opposition coalition, calling for a new Syria under Islamic law and dealing a severe blow to U.S.-led efforts to support a democratic alternative to embattled President Bashar Assad.

In a statement read out in an online video late Tuesday night, the rebel alliance called on other militants fighting to topple the Assad regime to unite under a “clear Islamic framework.”

SEE ALSO: On second thought…Assad can stay

“The prospect that the Islamists are going to be able to set up some sort of overarching political and military coordination and organizational structure should be troubling not only to the Syrian secular opposition, but also for Washington,” said David Schenker, director of the program on Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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