Israel says Syrian chemical arms safe

Defence Ministry strategist Amos Gilad spoke after another Israeli official di "Syria has large amounts of chemical weaponry and missiles. Everything there is under (Assad government) control," Gilad said in a speech. "Hezbollah does not have chemical weaponry. We have ways of knowing. They are not keen to take weaponry like this, preferring systems that can cover all of the country (Israel)," he said. He was apparently referring to Hezbollah's conventional ground-to-ground missiles, whose number the Israelis put at around 60,000. "Chemical weapons kill those who use them," Gilad added. The Assad government has hedged on whether it has chemical weapons while saying it would not use such arms against Syrians. The matter has been subject to intensive international scrutiny since Israel and the United States last month published findings indicating Assad forces had used chemical weapons during the insurgency.