President Barack Obama announced on Friday that the United States will give military support to Syrian opposition forces, after the White House alleged that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weaponry in the country's civil war.
Meanwhile, dozens of high-ranking Syrian officers grabbed their next-of-kin and fled-many of them headed north for Turkey.
According to The Atlantic, Turkish media has reported that around 73 officers-seven of whom were generals-crossed the border between Aleppo and such Turkish border cities as Reyhanli, Friday.
202 people in total escaped from the war-torn landscape in Syria.
Talk about bad timing-just when the United States government pointed the finger at Assad's regime for use of chemical weapons, in addition to stating plans of military aid, an enormous number of key military officials left for good.
For the past week, it seemed as though Assad's troops had changed the tides of the civil war, gaining power with key strategic victories on the ground. But now, the government's army is facing yet another issue-the prospect of Western intervention.
American intelligence agencies stated with "high confidence" that Assad used chemical weapons-among them, nerve agent sarin-"on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year," NBC reported.
"The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date," Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said. "However, casualty data is likely incomplete."
Last year, President Obama claimed that his "red line" with the situation in Syria would be crossed if he got word that chemical weapons were used.
"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," President Obama said in August. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."
According to Reuters, the Obama administration stated that arms distribution amongst opposition forces would probably be limited to "small arms and ammunition," as opposed to warheads and other large-scale weaponry.
