Syria crisis: Israel and US test missiles - live updates
LIVE• Russian radar picks up objects fired into Mediterranean
• Number of refugees tops 2 million, says UNHCR
• Assad warns that intervention could prompt regional war
• Obama officials to make case to Congress for Syria strikes
• Number of refugees tops 2 million, says UNHCR
• Assad warns that intervention could prompt regional war
• Obama officials to make case to Congress for Syria strikes
Earlier, we referenced chatter about a significant defection from the Assad regime. Sky News has reportedly named the defector as Abdul Tawab Shahrour, from Aleppo, and says he has evidence about use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Khan al-Assal, near the northern city. Each side accused the other of using chemical weapons against residents of Khan al-Assal in March.
US plans to 'degrade' Assad's capacity
A former US senior commander claims the Obama administration is planning to go beyond anticipated punitive strikes against the Assad regime
GeneralJack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the US army told the BBC that he understood President Obama was planning a more substantial intervention in Syria than had previously been believed, with increased support for the opposition forces, including training from US troops.
Keane spoke to the Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham after they were briefed by Obama.
Keane told the Today Programme:
What he won't do is topple the regime. There's a distinction here.What he has told the two senators is that he also intends to assist the opposition forces, so he is going to degrade Assad's military capacity and he is going to assist and upgrade the opposition forces with training assistance
Keane said any training would probably be done in neighbouring Jordan rather than in Syria itself.
The US Navy said it didn't fire missiles as part of joint tests announced by the Israelis.
Reuters quotes a US Navy spokesman as saying: "No missiles were fired from US ships in the Mediterranean," said the spokesman.
He had no further comment on the reported missile activity, it added. In other words he didn't deny that the US was involved in missiles test with Israel.
Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander pressed Hague to insist that Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, is involved in the main G20 summit in St Petersburg later this week.
Hague suggested Brahimi would only be involved in bilateral talks on the sidelines of the summit.
Hague replied: "Our problem is not being unable to discuss these things in the international community. It is being unable to be agree how to bring about a transitional government in Syria ... by mutual consent. We have had two and half years of discussion on this. It is agreement that is allusive not a format for discussion."
William Hague
William Hague insists that Britain is still committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria.
Answering Commons questions Hague said: "There is a still an overwhelming case for a peace conference in Geneva and we will continue to work towards that."
Hague said Britain was prepared to enter talks with Syria's ally Iran, but that Iran must show a commitment to a constructive settlement.
A few more details on the Israeli/US missile test, via Reuters.
Israel said it carried out a test of a missile, used as a target in a US funded anti-missile system, in the Mediterranean on Tuesday.The Israeli Defence Ministry said the test was conducted at 9:15 a.m. (0615 GMT), about the same time that Russia's state-run RIA news agency reported that Russian radar had detected the launch of two ballistic "objects" in the Mediterranean.
Early Reuters tweeted that the test involved the "anchor" anti-missile system.
Israel confirms missile test
Israel has confirmed that it carried out a joint missile test with the US in the Mediterranean, according to the latest brief update from Reuters.
The Russians appear to have been on to something after all.
British debate
In Britain the political fallout from last week's vote in the Commons to reject military intervention rumbles on.
William Hague is due to answer questions in the House in the next few minutes. Meanwhile his hawkish colleague Michael Gove has suggested he would like to see another vote on the issue, according to my colleague Andrew Sparrow over on the Politics live blog.
Gove reportedly shouted "You're a disgrace" at MPs who had voted against the government. He was asked whether that was true, and whether he wanted parliament to vote on the matter again. He replied:"I did become heated last week, that is absolutely right. At the moment that the government lost the vote on the motion, there were Labour MPs cheering as though it were a sort of football match and they had just won.At the same time on the news, we were hearing about an attack on a school in Syria and the death toll there rising - and the incongruity of Labour MPs celebrating as children had been killed by a ruthless dictator, I am afraid got to me and I did feel incredibly emotional. I do feel emotional about this subject.The prime minister explained about the vote and that is all I want to say."Asked again if he wanted the Commons to revisit the subject, he said: "That is all I want to say." It seemed fairly clear that he believed the answer should be yes.
Syria didn't pick up any missiles either, according to a pro-Assad TV station in Lebanon, Reuters reports.
Syria's early warning radar system did not detect any missiles landing on Syrian territory, according to a Syrian security source quoted by Lebanon's al-Manar television on Tuesday.
'Objects' fell into sea
Phew...
The "objects" detected by Russian radar fell into the sea, according to the latest update from the RIA news agency.
Scepticism about that Russian report:
Analsyt Aaron Stein, non-proliferation program manager at the Istanbul thinktank the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, tweets:
False alarm?
The Russian embassy in Syria says there has been indication yet of an attack on Damascus.
Meanwhile, Israel which is believed to have the best intelligence capacity in the region, can't confirm Russia's report. Reuters again:
Israel said on Tuesday it was unaware of any ballistic missile launch being conducted in the eastern Mediterranean."We are not aware, at this time, of such an event having occurred," a military spokeswoman in Jerusalem said after a Russian news agency reported the launch of two ballistic "objects" from the central part of the sea eastward.
Updated
A little more detail on that alarming Russian report via Reuters:
Russian radar detected two ballistic "objects" that were fired towards the eastern Mediterranean from the central part of the sea on Tuesday, state-run news agency RIA quoted the Defence Ministry as saying.The Defence Ministry declined immediate comment to Reuters. A ministry official had earlier criticised the United States for deploying warships in the Mediterranean close to Syria.
On Monday it emerged that Russia had dispatched a military reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, where five US warships are operating in the lead-up to a widely expected air strike in Syria.
The Priazovye departed for the Syrian coast on Sunday to keep tabs on the situation there, Russia's state news agency Itar-Tass quoted a military source as saying. Russia's foreign minister has previously said his country was not planning to become involved in a military conflict over Syria.
"This is the normal policy of any fleet in the case of an increase in tensions in any ocean or sea," the source said.
The Russian deployment follows the arrival last week of the USS Stout, a guided missile destroyer, sent to relieve the USS Mahan. A US defence official told AFP that both destroyers might remain in the area for now. Along with the Ramage, the Barry and the Gravely, the destroyers could launch Tomahawk missiles at targets in Syria if Obama orders an attack.
A group of US ships led by the aircraft carrier Nimitz have been deployed in the Arabian Sea.
Updated
Russia says 'objects' fired
Gulp...
The Russia's Defence Ministry says it has detected two ballistic 'objects' fired towards the eastern Mediterranean.
Reuters cites the Russian news agency RIA Novosti for the report.
We'll have more details as we get them.
Updated
Sweden has become the the first country in the EU to offer permanent residency to Syrian refugees, according to the Swedish news site The Local.
The decision covers all asylum seekers from Syria who have been granted temporary residency in Sweden for humanitarian protection. They will now receive permanent residence permits, the Swedish Migration Board announced on Tuesday.Previously, around half of Syrian asylum seekers had been granted permanent residency, with the remaining half receiving three-year residence permits.
The foreign ministers of countries neighbouring Syria are due to meet in Geneva on Thursday to discuss the refugee crisis, the UNHCR reports.
The influx crisis has hit Lebanon worst, according to Relief Web.
Lebanon has more refugees, as a percentage of the population, than any other country. And this trend is increasing. Following the 2011 Syrian crisis, also Lebanon hosts more Syrian refugees than any other country. In addition, it has a substantial Palestinian refugee community, and a relatively small Iraqi refugee population.
High level defection?
There are unconfirmed reports of a high-level defection from the Assad regime.
The Syria opposition claims that an Alawite officer who leads an "important branch" of the security services, is collaborating with rebels, according to the Arabic news site Aksaler (hat tip to the rspected Syria watcher Joshua Landis points out.
The Syrian online activist, The 47th, is hearing similar rumours.
The British Red Cross warns that the official UN figures for refugees masks even greater numbers who have fled Syria but have not made an appeal for asylum.
Pete Garratt, British Red Cross disaster manager, said:
To have reached this landmark figure of two million registered refugees is shocking, but the true figure is likely to be higher. We know there are people who will not have registered for support, for many reasons. They may be afraid of any form of authority or of registering their status.”In Jordan, the majority [70%] of refugees are living in urban areas away from the camps, presenting additional challenges for agencies in both finding the families who need support, and getting the aid to them.
The latest UN figures are updated here.
Updated
Summary
Welcome to Middle East Live.
Here's a roundup of the latest on the crisis in Syria:
• The number of Syrians forced to flee the country has doubled in just six months to 2 million prompting the UN to describe the refugee crisis as the worst in history. Announcing the figures, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, said Syria had become "a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history."
• Syrian military commanders are continuing to redeploy forces away from sensitive sites ahead of a postponed US air strike that many in Damascus believe is still likely. Residents of the Syrian capital said troops had moved into schools and universities, which officials calculate are unlikely to be hit if Barack Obama orders an attack following a congressional vote next Monday.
• Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, has challenged the west to come up with "a single piece" of evidence that he has used chemical weapons and warned that any military intervention in Syria could spark a "regional war". In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, he said: "The Middle East is a powder keg, and today the fuse is getting shorter."
In what will be one of the most high-profile political set pieces in Washington in weeks, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel will testify to the Senate Foreign Relations committee, on Tuesday.America's top military officer, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will also go before the panel.
• British military officials, who had been working with the US on Syria, are now being excluded from meetings following last week's parliamentary vote against military action, according to the Times. Its military sources said the role of senior British officers based at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, has been downgraded because they cannot be trusted with high-level intelligence about a conflict with which they are no longer involved. William Hague is due to answer questions on Syria in the Commons this morning.
• Ed Miliband has toughened his opposition to intervention by saying that Labour would only support military action if Britain's national security was threatened or al-Qaida and its affiliates gained possession of large stockpiles of chemical weapons. Labour's leadership has decided there would have to be a "very significant change" in circumstances to allow Britain to join any operation in Syria.
• A ComRes survey for the Independent has underlined public opposition to military intervention in Syria. Two-thirds of those polled said they were against US plans for military strikes against the Assad regime. And 62% agreed that the experience of the 2003 Iraq war means that Britain should keep out of military conflicts in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.