National Post  |  March 13, 2012

Syria A Chemical Weapon 'Powder Keg Ready To Explode,' Experts Fear

By Peter Goodspeed

The Free Syrian Army on Tuesday. Attacks on government weapons depots pose a threat
to chemical and biological stockpiles. Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/ AFP/Getty Images; Courtesy: nationalpost.com

While United Nations officials said Tuesday that more than 8,000 people have died in a year of political unrest in Syria, some experts fear the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad's regime may actually be worse than the threat of all-out civil war.

The sudden demise of Syria's dictator has the potential to expose the Middle East and the world to a massive new threat from chemical and biological weapons.

Syria has been stockpiling chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction since the late 1970s and is widely believed to possess one of the world's largest inventories of mustard blister agent, sarin nerve gas and possibly VX nerve agent.

"The country is a chemical powder keg ready to explode," says a report released last week by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Hundreds of tonnes of chemical weapons, chemical warheads for medium-range, Soviet-built Scud B and C ballistic missiles, air-dropped bombs and conventional artillery shells are believed to be stored in about 50 sites around Syria.

At least four chemical weapon production facilities are located in the towns of al-Safira (12 kilometres southeast of Aleppo), Hama, Homs and Latakia, while massive munition storage depots are located at Khan Abu Shamat (northeast of Damascus) and Furqlus (just east of Homs).

"The situation in Syria is unprecedented," said Charles Blair of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in a recent report for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "Never before has a WMD-armed country fallen into civil war."

While there was considerable concern internationally that Libyan chemical weapons and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles might fall into the hands of terrorists during last year's fight to depose Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the threat posed by Syria is exponentially higher.

"The Libyan chemical stockpile consisted of several tonnes of aging mustard gas leaking from a half-dozen containers that would have been impossible to utilize as weapons," Mr. Blair said. "Syria likely has one of the largest and most sophisticated chemical weapons programs in the world... More here