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Syrian army repels rebel attacks on positions of chemical weapons

(Xinhua)    09:07, December 25, 2013
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DAMASCUS, Dec. 24 -- Syrian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the government forces repelled a series of attacks by the rebels against positions of the chemical weapons in central and southern the country.

A number of armed terrorist groups on Saturday stormed one of the positions in the central Syria with vehicles outfitted with heavy machine-guns, but Syrian authorities repelled the attack, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday in letters to the UN.

It also said that another attack had been staged by radical rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the so-called Islam Brigade against another position in the countryside of the capital Damascus, adding that the rebels attempted to storm the facility with a booby-trapped armored vehicle but the site's guards destroyed the vehicle before it entered the facility. The attack caused an explosion that killed four people and injured 28 others.

"These attacks are still incessant on that position," the ministry noted.

The attacks came at a time when reports said that Russian-made vehicles were sent to Syria to help ship the chemical weapons out of the war-stricken country to the port of Syria's coastal city of Latakia in order to transport the weapons by sea for their final destruction, in accordance to a deal struck recently between Syrian authorities and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Meanwhile, the ministry held the rebels' regional backers responsibilities for the attacks, accusing them of providing the rebels with information about the locations of the chemical arsenal.

"Syria condemns what some well-known countries are doing by tipping the armed groups about the locations of the chemical weapons in Syria, and those countries should be held responsibility for the risks that such attacks are posing," the ministry said.

It urged the international organizations to stop the " irresponsible countries" from their persistent actions regarding this "grave" issue.

Following the destruction of gears and equipment that serve in making the weapons, transporting the chemicals out of the country has concerned the international community and the OPCW as some of the locations are in rebel-held areas.

The Syrian government has been accused Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of helping, aiding and arming the hard-liners that are streaming into the country from its neighbors.

The U.S. administration recently urged the countries that support the radical rebels in Syria to halt their support, and Britain reportedly decided to strip the British people, who are fighting alongside the rebels in Syria, of their British citizenships, an indicator of the growing international concern regarding the active role of the al-Qaida terror network in the Syrian war.

(Editor:ZhangQian、Yao Chun)

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