Assad will use chemical weapons: top defector

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to use chemical weapons against the forces of opposition and may have already implemented, Nawaf Fares, Syria's first ambassador to defect, said Monday.

Rates, the most prominent politician to defect since the uprising against Assad, insisted that the president began days were numbered, but warned he would be willing "to eradicate all the people of Syria" to remain in power.

When asked if that would mean the use of chemical weapons, Fares said: "I am convinced that if the regime of Bashar al-Assad is cornered by the people - who would use such weapons."

"There is information, information is not confirmed, that chemical weapons have been used in Homs," the former ambassador to Iraq.

Syria has a large stock of chemical weapons and neighboring countries are increasingly concerned about what will happen to them if the regime collapses.

Fares said the result was as "inevitable".

"It is absolutely certain that this government will fall soon," he said from his refuge in Qatar. "We hope that this time is short so that more sacrifices are reduced."

Fares, who announced his defection on July 11, was widely seen as a hardliner regime and its decision to break ranks has provoked suspicion among activists.

Some dissidents claim rates was probably prepared by the West to play a role in a transitional government, while others have spoken of his "criminal" past.

The rates, which has served as governor in various provinces of Syria and has held senior positions in the Baath Party and security is born of the important Oqaydat Sunni tribe in eastern Syria, which also has members in Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

A former police officer, Fares had close ties to the feared intelligence services before he became governor and later Syria's first ambassador to Iraq after a 30-year break in relations between the two neighbors.

Military armored vehicles deployed in Syria near the center of Damascus on Monday as rebels fought troops around the capital in what activists said it could be a turning point in the uprising of 16 months.

Price said the spread of violence in the capital showed that the "expansion and power of the revolution was increasing day by day."