U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to offer direct military support to Syrian rebels after confirming that Syrian forces under President Bashar al-Assad's regime were using chemical weapons against the rebels in the country.
Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser didn't specify about the kind of military support that the administration is considering but Rhodes said that the aid would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before."
Earlier, the White House had warned that use of any chemical weapons would cross a "red line."
Releasing a statement Thursday, the White House said that its intelligence has concluded that the Assad regime was using chemical weapons including the nerve agent Sarin against the Syrian rebels.
"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," Ben Rhodes told reporters.
"Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information," said Ben. "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."
"We have consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for decades," added Ben Rhodes.
Support from the West's regional allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar has helped the rebels in their fight against the regime but since the Assad government sought help from Moscow and Tehran, it has become tougher for the rebels.
America's extension of support to Syria will surely help the rebels but "that is likely to take many months" with more destruction and more bloodshed, according to the BBC correspondent based in Beirut.
