we made a decision that the syrian opposition coalition is nowusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the syrian people in opposition to the assad regime and so we will provide them recognition and obviously with that recognition comes responsibilities on the part of that coalition. shepard: the head of the syrian national coalition says they need military equipment. but the white house is still against arming the group. at the same time syrians say television reports a huge explosion rocked the main gate of the interior ministry in damascus and senior u.s. defense official says the syrian military is firing scud missiles at rebel fighters. think of that. the government firing scud missiles at its own people inside its own borders. the fox report jonathan hunt has this, live from the united nations. what else do we know about the scud missiles?
seeing the regime fire on its own assets. in other words the scud rockets are firing right now from one syrian peace controlled by the syrian regime against another base that appears to be at least on the verge of being taken over by the rebels. so it appears the regime is actually destroying its own assets. that is significant. the fact they re firing off the scud rockets, this is some heavyweight stuff. i think they re nearing kind of the bottom of the barrel. i ve also read reports that they have been dropping naval mines from the air. again, looks like they re just sort of right at the end of the ordnance they might have readily available. you get a sign there is real desperation here. we ve been hearing for months now that the tide is turning. now that we have russia finally ceding this as well, i mean i don t want to make predictions here but i do think we re in the 11th hour. jenna: what about the chemical weapons? where they, who has them?
why are the markets volatile. reporter: now this is interesting. we re looking this morning at a new analysis from the nga, the national governor s association. they say on average states will lose about 7% of their federal grants if we go over the cliff. but that some states will actually bring in more tax revenue to compensate. other states will bring in less. that is interesting. all right. thanks so much. syria is reportedly escalating the conflict with opposition forces by firing scud missiles at rebels. u.s. officials say more than half dozen scud missiles were fired into northern syria and areas held about it rebels have suffered severe damage recently. there s no evidence that the missiles contain chemical weapons, though. meanwhile, the president of ecuador denied yesterday that syrian leader assad has requested asylum there. john mcafee is back on u.s. soil after being deported from guatemala on immigration
different days. the reason why scud missiles are important and certainly a powerful reason, because scud missiles can carry chemical weapons. as we reported to you this week the president has been very clear, president obama, that if syria uses chemical weapons, that is a game-changer for the united states. what that means for us we won t know. we don t have specifics on but that is just the report now coming into our newsroom. the assad regime using scud missiles at rebel fighters. no word on casualties by the way and no evidence of chemical weapons being used as well but an important, perhaps switch to this conflict that s now been ongoing for 21 months. we ll keep you updated as we hear more. jon: the kidnapping of 6-year-old eat town patz stunned the nation and now the man who confessed to the murder is live in court. reporter: we re tracking this down in the newsroom because it is expected to happen to.
now firing scud mills at the rebels. jonathan hunt is at the united nations. this firing of scud missiles is new. jonathan: it is. u.s. defense officials believe that some half dozen or so of the scud missiles have been fired at targets north of damascus by the syrian security forces aiming at the rebels in the last few days. they do not have any reports any casualties. you will wreck that scud missiles were widely launched by saddam hussein during the 1991 gulf war. they were largely inaccurate then and it appear they have been inaccurate now. it is an odd choice, this soviet missile as a tactical weapon by the syrians but according to white house officials, it could be one more sign of president bashar al-assad s desperation. if true, this would be latest desperate act from a regime that