• Obama asks Pentagon to draw up plan for Syria no-fly zone
• Russia to send anti-aircraft missiles to deter 'hotheads'
• London and Paris force EU to let arms embargo lapse
• US policy unrelated to EU decision, state department says
• Investigation finds chemical weapons exposure
Paul Owen and Tom McCarthy
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 May 2013 07.33 AEST
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William Hague, the British foreign secretary, at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels that agreed to drop the arms embargo against Syrian rebels. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters
8.38am BST
Summary
Good morning and welcome to the Middle East live blog. We'll have live coverage of developments from the region throughout the day.
Syria • The EU arms embargo on Syria will not be renewed, meaning Britain and France can supply arms to the Syrian opposition from 1 August. London and Paris were the only capitals of 27 EU countries that backed letting the embargo lapse this Friday, UK foreign secretary William Hague arguing that the mere threat of arms would force Bashar al-Assad to the negotiations. But the other EU countries – despite worries the arms would fall into the hands of Islamist rebels such as Jabhat al-Nusra – assented, to preserve a semblance of unified policy, since the refusal of Britain and France to go along with the arms embargo could have caused the collapse of all EU sanctions against Syria. The August start date was decided upon to give the EU time to gauge what might happen at the peace talks in Geneva mooted for next month, although there is no certainty they will take place or who will attend. All the other parts of the Syrian embargo were retained apart from the arms embargo on the rebels.
• Austria was a strong opponent of letting the embargo lapse, and foreign minister Michael Spindelegger said that Vienna would now have to reconsider its deployment on a long-running UN peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel. Vienna has said in the past it might have to pull its 380 soldiers out if the arms embargo was eased.
• Medics working in six rebel-held districts near Damascus have treated several hundred fighters for symptoms of chemical exposure since March, a detailed investigation has found, adding fresh impetus to claims the Syrian regime has resorted to the banned weapons. France is testing samples of suspected chemical weapon elements used against Syrian rebel fighters and smuggled out by reporters from Le Monde and will divulge the results in the next few days, a senior French official said.
• The battle for Qusair near the border with Lebanon continued to rage on Monday, with Hezbollah forces advancing slowly from the south, but continuing to take heavy casualties. Officials close to the Islamic Dawa party in Lebanon suggested to Lebanese media that between 79-110 Hezbollah militants had been killed in Qusair in the past eight days.
• Some 96 people were killed across Syria yesterday, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an activist monitoring group. The group said 30 of those were killed in Homs, and 28 in Damascus and its surrounding areas. The Local Co-ordination Committees, another activist group, said 89 people had been killed, including 27 in Damascus and 27 in Homs. These accounts cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
• A British doctor who left his home, family and job in the UK to help civilians wounded by the conflict in Syria has died after the makeshift hospital he was working in was shelled. Dr Isa Abdur Rahman, 26, was working as a volunteer in the north-western city of Idlib with the British charity Hand in Hand for Syria (HIHS) when the facility was attacked.
• Hawkish US senator John McCain met rebel leaders inside Syria to discuss their calls for heavy weapons and a no-fly zone to help them topple Assad and bring the bitter civil war to a conclusion. The Arizona senator has been leading efforts in Congress in recent weeks to force Barack Obama to intervene in Syria following reports of alleged chemical weapons use by forces loyal to Assad.
Lebanon • Gunmen opened fire on a military checkpoint in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley this morning, killing three soldiers before fleeing to the nearby Syrian border, a Lebanese military source told Reuters. The source said two of the soldiers died in the attack, near the town of Arsal, and a third died later in hospital. The border areas around Arsal are used by Syrian rebels to smuggle weapons and fighters from Lebanon across into Syria, and the region has seen previous clashes between the Lebanese military and gunmen. The news comes two days after a rocket attack hit Beirut's southern suburbs near the heartland of Hezbollah, raising fears Lebanon could be drawn more deeply into the Syrian conflict next door.
Iraq
• A wave of bombs exploded in markets in mainly Shia neighbourhoods across Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 66 people and injuring nearly 200, increasing fears that Iraq risks sliding back into broad sectarian conflict.
Israel and the Palestinian territories
• European football's governing body, Uefa, has been accused of showing "total insensitivity" to the "blatant and entrenched discrimination" of Israel against Palestinian sportspeople.
Updated at 10.02am BST
*** 1247 Comments
Read the full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/may/28/eu-lifts-arms-embargo-on-syrian-rebels-live-updates#ixzz2Ufu9JYz6
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