Following the fall of Bashar Assad, OPCW inspectors think over 100 chemical weapons websites stay covert throughout Syria, raising alarms about unsecured stockpiles, previous coverups, and restored US-Syrian efforts to take apart the residues
Inspectors from the Organisation for the Restriction of Chemical Defense (OPCW) presume that more than 100 chemical weapons-related websites stay active or unaccounted for throughout Syria, following the fall of previous President Bashar Assad. This figure calls into question the precision of the numbers formerly acknowledged by the previous Syrian federal government.
This is the very first such price quote because the fall of the Assad routine on December 8, 2024, as the OPCW now looks for to reenter Syria and examine what stays of Assad’s infamous military chemical program. The number far goes beyond any figure ever confessed by the previous routine.
According to the OPCW, the brand-new price quote is based upon intelligence collected from external scientists, not-for-profit companies, and intelligence-sharing amongst member states. The believed websites are thought to have actually been utilized for chemical weapons research study, production, and storage.
Throughout the civil war, the Assad routine used chemical weapons, consisting of sarin and chlorine gas, versus opposition fighters and Syrian civilians. A few of the staying websites are most likely concealed in caverns or remote areas, making satellite detection challenging, according to previous OPCW personnel and independent specialists. This raises issues about the perhaps unsecured state of some stockpiles.
Syria signed up with the OPCW under Assad in 2013 as part of a US-Russian brokered offer following a sarin gas attack that eliminated hundreds. Yet OPCW inspectors have actually long dealt with blockage by Syrian authorities, and the real number and status of Syria’s chemical weapons centers stayed uncertain even after Assad’s fall.
In the early years of the civil war, Assad’s federal government divulged just 27 chemical weapons websites to the OPCW, which were consequently examined and decommissioned. Nevertheless, the routine continued utilizing chemical representatives up until a minimum of 2018, and research study reveals it kept importing vital chemical precursors in spite of sanctions.
Inspectors have actually alerted that these weapons present severe risks, particularly in largely inhabited locations. Sarin, a nerve representative, can eliminate within minutes. Chlorine and mustard gas, both infamously utilized in World War I, can trigger extreme burns, loss of sight, and breathing failure.
In a surprise check out to OPCW head office in The Hague this March, Syria’s brand-new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, revealed that the existing federal government strategies to ruin any residues of the chemical weapons program established under Assad’s routine and would totally abide by global law. The federal government currently enabled OPCW groups into the nation last month to start recording the websites, according to sources knowledgeable about the matter.
Nevertheless, Syria has yet to designate an ambassador to the OPCW, an essential diplomatic action viewed as an indication of dedication to solving the problem.
As Washington prompts Syria to help with the OPCW’s objective, a senior authorities in the Syrian Foreign Ministry informed The Media Line that the United States had actually provided Damascus with a list of conditions in exchange for partial sanctions relief, consisting of cooperation on chemical weapons disarmament.
The list was supposedly turned over by United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Levant and Syria Natasha Franceschi to al-Shibani throughout a personal conference on the sidelines of the Syria Donors Conference in Brussels on March 18. The conference, which had actually not been formerly divulged, marks the very first top-level contact in between Damascus and Washington because President Donald Trump took workplace on January 20, 2025.
Previous Syrian parliamentarian Mohammad al-Homsi informed The Media Line that “the United States has actually currently begun dealing with taking apart the staying chemical weapons in Syria,” accompanying Israeli airstrikes on different areas throughout the nation.
Washington is likewise collaborating with a number of Middle Eastern specifies to avoid residues of the previous routine’s chemical weapons from falling under the incorrect hands.
The United States and its allies are worried that the collapse of the routine’s military and security facilities and the growing turmoil might result in harmful weapons being taken by unapproved stars, which needs speedy global action.
Ayman Abdel Nour, a Washington-based Syrian political expert, stated, “The United States and its allies are worried that the collapse of the routine’s military and security facilities and the growing turmoil might result in harmful weapons being taken by unapproved stars, which needs speedy global action.”
Concerns continue to swirl around the history of Syria’s chemical weapons program. Retired Syrian Flying Force Colonel Khaled Mansour informed The Media Line that Syria initially started pursuing chemical weapons in 1971. That year, Dr. Abdullah Wathiq Shahid, a nuclear physicist and senior consultant to previous President Assad, established the Scientific Researches and Proving Ground, which concentrated on chemical defense systems with Soviet assistance, consisting of obtaining 11,000 protective gas masks from China.
United States sources show that Syria acquired a little stockpile of chemical weapons from Egypt prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Nevertheless, the Syrian military never ever released these weapons versus Israel or other opponents. They were obviously scheduled for worst-case situations including military collapse. However after Egypt signed the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in the late 1970s and especially after Syria’s disastrous losses to Israel in Lebanon in 1982, in addition to stress with the Soviet Union throughout the Iran-Iraq War, Damascus felt progressively separated. This drove the Assad routine to additional purchase chemical weapons as a tactical deterrent.
By the mid-1980s, Syria had actually started producing chemical representatives. In 1983, United States nationwide intelligence quotes initially determined a Syrian chemical weapons production center. A 2014 British federal government disclosure verified that Syria had, by 1986, gotten numerous lots of chemical precursors, consisting of trimethyl phosphite, dimethyl phosphite, and hydrogen fluoride, from the UK and had actually started establishing nerve representatives like sarin. By 1990, United States authorities and media reports showed that Syria had actually transformed a number of farming chemical plants into sarin production centers. In 1997, United States and Israeli sources declared Syria’s program consisted of centers in Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo efficient in producing sarin, mustard gas, and possibly VX, the most lethal nerve representative understood.
As an outcome, the United States prohibited sales of sarin and mustard precursors to Syria in the 1980s, pressing Damascus towards the black market. In 1996, Russian authorities implicated retired basic Anatoly Kuntsevich of delivering 800 kgs of precursors to Syria. Though the charges were later on dropped, Israeli media reported that Kuntsevich ultimately confessed to moving these products.
In Between 2002 and 2006, CIA reports consistently verified Syria’s ownership of sarin and its efforts to establish more poisonous and consistent nerve representatives. A 2009 intelligence report concluded that the Syrian armed force might perform chemical attacks by means of airplane, long-range rockets, and weapons.
In June 2012, Israeli Deputy Chief of Personnel Yair Naveh stated that Syria had the biggest chemical weapons stock worldwide, developed over 4 years, that included sarin, mustard gas, and other nerve representatives. The following month, the Syrian federal government made its very first implicit recommendation of these weapons, not through main statements, however through their usage on the battleground, which left apparent proof on victims’ bodies.