2 weeks Ago By The Telegraph
More than 100 chemical weapons sites remain in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime, according to a weapons watchdog. It is the first time such an estimate has been made by an international organisation since the fall of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is trying to enter the country to assess the remains of the military programme which until now, had remained top secret.
The latest estimate, reported by the New York Times , comes from external researchers, nonprofit groups and intelligence shared by its member countries. In December, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar admitted that dozens of strikes had targeted suspected sites in the wake of Assad’s fall, and the government takeover by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Mr Sa’ar said the action was taken to prevent the weapons falling into hostile hands, with Israeli troops now present in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria.
“That’s why we attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they not fall into the hands of extremists,” he said at the time. Minister of Defence, Israel Katz, also said at the time that the strikes would continue in order to protect Israel, saying the military would “destroy heavy strategic weapons throughout Syria, including surface-to-air missiles, air defence systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and coastal missiles.” According to the latest report, the remaining sites are suspected to have been involved in the research, manufacturing and storage of chemical weapons.
The decades-long dictator al-Assad had used weapons including chlorine gas, made famous during the First World War, against rebel fighters and Syrian civilians during more than a decade of civil war. The chemical burns the eyes and skin and fills the lungs with fluid. Also among the cache of weapons was sarin, a nerve agent which can kill in minutes.
During a visit to the Hague in March, Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, said the government would “destroy any remains of the chemical weapons programme developed under the Assad regime” and comply with international law, committing to working with the OPCW. “At this historic juncture, our commitment today at the Executive Council is to destroy any remains of the chemical weapons programme developed under the Assad regime, to put an end to this painful legacy, to bring justice to victims, and to ensure that the compliance with international law is a solid one. “Syria is dedicated to this task through a strong commitment and will need the support of the international community, with the OPCW, to achieve it,” Mr Shaibani told the OPCW’s executive council.
Speaking to Axios after the fall of the Assad regime, an unnamed US official also confirmed that it was working to eliminate remaining weapons, including chemical weapons. The official told Axios that the US has “good fidelity” on the status of Syria’s weapons inventory and that its intelligence experts believe it is still under control. “We are taking very prudent measures about this .
.. We are doing everything we can to ensure that those materials are not available to anyone and are cared for,” the official said.
“We want to make sure that chlorine or things that are far worse are destroyed or secured. There are several efforts in this regard with partners in the region.” During the beginning of Syria’s civil war, 27 chemical weapons sites were declared to the monitoring group, which sent inspectors to visit and shut them down.
However, Mr Assad continued to use chemical weapons until around 2018 with research showing he continued to import precursor chemicals, with many sites believed to be hidden in the likes of caves, hard to detect through satellite imaging..
