German paper: Assad may not have authorized chemical attack

Syrian government forces may have carried out a chemical weapons attack close to Damascus without the personal permission of President Bashar Assad, Germany's Bild am Sonntag paper reported Sunday, citing BND German intelligence. For four and-a-half months, Syrian commanders asked the president to allow them to use chemical weapons, but were always denied, the paper reported, in support of its suggestion that the order to use poison gas on Aug. 21 may not have come from Assad in person.

According to a reverse report in the same paper, Germany’s top soldier Gen. Wolker Wieker told a parliamentary panel that while the BND did not have absolute proof of Assad government responsibility, there was plenty of evidence to support the allegation – for instance, a phone call intercepted by German spies, in which a Hizballah official told the Iranian Embassy in Damascus that Assad had ordered the attack and was out of control.