Assad regime continues to employ chemical weapons

Assad regime continues to employ chemical weapons

Published 22 April 2015

 

Syrian government troops had used chemical weapons against civilians and rebels on many occasions, culminating in an August 2013 deadly chemical attack against civilians in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb. That attack killed more than 1,200 people. Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 in the face of a threat of a U.S. military attack, admitting to owning about 1,300 tons of chemical weapons and ingredients for making toxic gas and nerve agents, and agreeing to give up this stockpile and destroy, under supervision, its chemical weapons production infrastructure. Western intelligence services have always suspected that Assad has not come clean, and that the regime still keeps secret chemical stockpiles. The continued use of chemical weapons in Syria means that the Assad regime agreed to refrain from developing new chemical weapons, but not from using existing inventory.

Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), recently declared that all chemical weapons across the 98 percent of the world covered by his organization’s members will be destroyed “within this decade.” “That amounts to more than 70,000 metric tons of chemical agent,” Uzumcu said in a speech. “To put this figure into perspective, it takes only one drop of much of this agent to kill an adult instantly.”
The United States and Russia, countries with the two largest chemical stockpiles, have made their own pledges: The United States said it would destroy 90 percent of its stockpile by 2023, and Russia said it would destroy 86 percent of its inventory by 2020.
Yahoo News reports that Syrian government government troops had used chemical weapons against civilians and rebels on many occasion, culminating in an August 2013 deadly chemical attack against civilians in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb. That attack killed more than 1,200 people and send hundreds more to hospitals.
Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 in the face of a threat of U.S. military attack, after admitting to owning about 1,300 tons of chemical weapons and ingredients for making toxic gas and nerve agents, and agreeing to give up this stockpile and destroy, under supervision, its chemical weapons production infrastructure.
Last week, members of the United Nations Security Council listened to first-hand accounts from doctors who attended to patients in Syria after a chlorine bomb attack in March. The United States, Britain, and France have accused the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad of using chlorine gas against civilians (see “Strong evidence that Syrian government used chemicals in attacks on three cities,” HSNW, 17 April 2015).
Dr. Mohamed Tennari, from the Syrian town of Sarmeen, told diplomats at the Security Council that the chlorine attack came right after residents heard helicopters outside their homes. U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, notes that an attribution mechanism is needed to know who precisely carried out the chemical attacks, but “all the evidence shows that they come from helicopters — only the Assad regime has helicopters,” she said.
While OPCW representatives have removed Syria’s chemical stockpile from the country, last month’s chlorine attack brings into question whether the Assad regime reported its entire stockpile to the OPCW (see “Assad retains secret caches of chemical weapons: Israeli intelligence,” HSNW, 1 October 2014). If secret chemical stockpiles remain, then Syria’s admission to the OPCW only means the country will refrain from developing new chemical weapons, but not from using existing inventory.

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