Spy Chief Says Assad Has Strengthened Hold on Power in Syria

-        The country’s top intelligence official said President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power in Syria had “strengthened” over the past year, and that he has benefited from a deal to abandon his chemical weapons arsenal

-        Syrian activists reported that government helicopters dumped barrel bombs onto neighborhoods in Aleppo suspected of housing insurgents

-        Concern has been mounting in both Congress and in the Obama administration that the policy toward Syria is faltering on several fronts.

-        Assad government has delayed taking its most dangerous chemicals to the port of Latakia so they could be shipped out of the country for destruction under the terms agreement that calls for Syria to give up its arsenal of poison gas

-        They have also blocked shipments of medicine and food to besieged areas.

-        No one in this administration (Obama) thinks we are doing enough until the humanitarian crisis has been solved and the civil war ended.

-        Critics say such talks are unlikely to succeed unless Mr. Assad is weakened militarily and has some incentive to negotiate

-        The C.I.A warned that the chaos in Syria had become fertile ground for militant groups to stage attacks outside the country

-        Syrian government’s explanations for the missed deadlines are that security dangers posed by the Syrian civil war had created problems in transporting the chemicals to the port of Latakia. Western officials have suggested this is merely an excuse

-        Four percent of the dangerous chemicals have been sent to the port for removal