The USA's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to take swift action if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons.
After a meeting with fellow foreign ministers of NATO, Clinton said:
"Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons, or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria."
"We have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account."
Syria has not signed the international chemical weapons treaty banning the use of poison gas, and US officials have announced this week that they have obtained intelligence that Syria may be preparing to use chemical weapons.
Syrian officials however, including Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Maqdad, have said that the regime would never use such weapons on its own people.
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