Greater than 100 chemical weapons websites are suspected to stay in Syria, left behind after the fall of the longtime president, Bashar al-Assad, based on the main worldwide group that tracks these weapons.
That quantity is the primary estimate of its variety because the group, the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, seeks to enter Syria to evaluate what stays of Mr. al-Assad’s infamous army program. The determine is much greater than any that Mr. al-Assad has ever acknowledged.
The websites are suspected to have been concerned within the analysis, manufacturing and storage of chemical weapons. Mr. al-Assad used weapons like sarin and chlorine fuel in opposition to insurgent fighters and Syrian civilians throughout greater than a decade of civil war.
The variety of websites, and whether or not they’re secured, has been a thriller since rebels toppled Mr. al-Assad final yr. Now, the chemical compounds symbolize a significant check for the caretaker government, which is led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The group is designated as a terrorist group by the US, but it surely has renounced its hyperlinks to Al Qaeda.
The stakes are excessive due to how deadly the weapons are, significantly when utilized in densely populated areas. Sarin, a nerve agent, can kill inside minutes. Chlorine and mustard fuel, weapons made notorious in World Struggle I, burn the eyes and pores and skin and fill the lungs with fluid, seemingly drowning individuals on land.
Consultants are involved concerning the potential for militant teams to realize entry to poorly secured chemical weapons services.
In a shock go to in March to the worldwide chemical weapons watchdog headquarters at The Hague, Syria’s overseas minister mentioned that the federal government would “destroy any stays of the chemical weapons program developed beneath the Assad regime” and adjust to worldwide regulation.
Consultants are cautiously optimistic concerning the authorities’s sincerity. The present authorities allowed a crew from the watchdog to enter the nation this yr to start work documenting the websites, based on individuals with information of the journey.
However Syria stays in a precarious spot, as violence erupted in the coastal region in current weeks between authorities forces and teams aligned with Mr. al-Assad. And regardless of guarantees, the brand new authorities has not but appointed an envoy to the watchdog — a key first step that’s seen as an indication of a rustic’s dedication. Syria’s protection ministry declined to reply written questions concerning the weapons, saying with out elaboration that the questions weren’t beneath its purview.
Within the early years of the civil struggle, Mr. al-Assad’s authorities declared the areas of 27 websites to the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or O.P.C.W., which despatched inspectors to go to and shut them down. However Mr. al-Assad continued to make use of chemical weapons till at the least 2018, and research showed that his authorities stored importing important precursor chemical compounds.
The present estimate of greater than 100 websites comes from the watchdog and has been circulated lately amongst consultants and worldwide nonproliferation analysts. The group mentioned it had arrived on the quantity based mostly on outdoors researchers, nonprofit teams and intelligence shared by its member international locations.
Some websites are in all probability hidden in caves or different locations which are robust to seek out utilizing satellite tv for pc pictures, based on researchers, former group workers members and different consultants. That will increase the chance that some weapons aren’t secured.
“There are lots of areas that we don’t find out about as a result of the previous regime was mendacity to the O.P.C.W.,” mentioned Raed al-Saleh, the chief of the Syria Civil Protection, also called the White Helmets, a volunteer group that claims it’s working with the federal government to attempt to dismantle chemical weapons websites.
Nidal Shikhani, who leads the Chemical Violations Documentation Middle of Syria and has labored with the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for years, mentioned his group had recognized dozens of recent areas that could possibly be chemical weapons stockpiles or former analysis websites based mostly on interviews with Syrian authorities scientists dwelling in Europe.
Discovering and taking management of those websites is essential for causes past safety. Inspectors additionally need to gather proof for his or her investigations into Mr. al-Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons. Worldwide observers, unbiased researchers and Syrian humanitarian teams have documented dozens of assaults, with hundreds of individuals, together with youngsters among the many victims. Essentially the most infamous was a 2013 sarin gas assault on the world of Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, the capital.
Final yr, Israel launched airstrikes on a number of Syrian regime services the place chemical weapons had been identified to have been held. However it’s unclear whether or not these strikes destroyed chemical weapons.
Mr. Shikhani and others mentioned they nervous that the strikes merely created environmental contamination and destroyed proof. Worldwide teams hope that chemical proof will reply key questions concerning the Assad authorities’s analysis and assist with worldwide prosecutions.
“The Israeli assaults that occurred proper after the autumn of Assad are in all probability prone to not have put a dent in a few of this, and doubtlessly additionally obscured efforts towards accountability,” mentioned Natasha Corridor, a senior fellow with the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington.
Sarin fuel is prohibited beneath worldwide regulation. The principles are murkier for different chemical compounds. Chlorine fuel, as an illustration, could be created utilizing widespread family cleansing merchandise. That makes it almost inconceivable to control the sale of precursors.
Syria’s chemical weapons program started within the Seventies with the assistance of tons of of presidency scientists, a lot of whom had been skilled in Germany and different elements of Europe, based on a Syrian former senior authorities chemist who spoke on the situation of anonymity out of concern of retribution.
The scientist labored within the chemical weapons division of the army’s Scientific Research and Analysis Middle. That heart, which is beneath worldwide sanctions, labored on typical, chemical and nuclear arms.
Many scientists, he and others mentioned, fled the nation in the course of the struggle, however others stay in Syria. The USA has imposed sanctions on greater than 300 individuals and entities in reference to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
Regardless of the assurances of the brand new authorities, weapons inspectors are tempering their optimism. They’ve heard such assurances in Syria earlier than.
Syria first agreed to do away with chemical weapons greater than a decade in the past. However as inspectors performed their work, they grew to become satisfied that Mr. al-Assad had no intention of unveiling full details about his stockpiles. Former workers members say they had been perpetually hamstrung by the federal government.
In one episode in 2014, inspectors and Syrian workers members had been investigating a possible website when a automotive of their convoy struck a roadside bomb. Two Syrians who had been within the convoy blamed the federal government for deceptive them and assuring them the route was protected. Different workers members recalled being continually afraid that the federal government was eavesdropping on their conversations or spying them.
Mr. al-Assad’s authorities additionally coated up assaults wherein it used sarin and chlorine fuel on its own people.
Within the city of Zamalka, close to Damascus, headstones mark the names of many residents killed in the course of the struggle, and the dates of their dying. On the opposite aspect of the cemetery sits a mound of grime, piled excessive to the bottom, its significance unmarked.
It was there, an area official mentioned, that the city had buried the native males, girls and kids who had been killed in a 2013 suspected chemical weapons attack. When Mr. al-Assad’s authorities recaptured the city in 2017, the official mentioned, the federal government eliminated the headstones and coated up the gravesites.
