From Donna Cassata and Richard Lardner, AP:  The top U.S. military commander in Europe said Tuesday that several NATO countries are working on contingency plans for possible military action to end the two-year civil war in Syria as President Bashar Assad’s regime accused U.S.-backed Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons. . . .

"The Syrian situation continues to become worse and worse and worse," Adm. James Stavridis, the commander of U.S. European Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "No end in sight to a vicious civil war."

Stavridis, who is retiring soon, said a number of NATO nations are looking at a variety of military operations to end the deadlock and assist the opposition forces, including using aircraft to impose a no-fly zone, providing military assistance to the rebels and imposing arms embargoes.

As with U.S. and international involvement in Libya in 2011, a resolution from the U.N. Security Council and agreement among the alliance’s 28 members would be necessary before NATO assumes a military role in Syria, Stavridis said.

"We are prepared if called upon to be engaged as we were in Libya," he said.

But within individual member countries, the admiral said, "there’s a great deal of discussion" about lethal support to Syria, no-fly zones, arms embargoes and more. "It is moving individually within the nations, but it has not yet come into NATO as an overall NATO-type approach," he said.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked whether there is any consideration of targeting Syria’s air defenses. Stavridis simply said yes. . . .

Stavridis said that his personal opinion is that providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition "would be helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the Assad regime."  (photo: Yves Logghe/AP)

Image: ap%203%2020%2013%20Admiral-James-Stavridis.jpg