By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria-Dismantlement of Syria’s chemical weapons has officially begun as a team of United Nations experts has moved into the country. The destruction of Syria’s arsenal is expected to be completed by mid-2014.
The experts, members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), are operating under the recently passed UN resolution, following international outrage at a chemical attack near Damascus in August.
Hundreds were killed in the August 21st attack in which it has been determined that the nerve agent sarin was used. The U.S. and Western allies accuse the Syrian government of being responsible, while Syria is blaming the rebels.
The UN resolution was achieved under a U.S.-Russian agreement for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to turn over its chemical weapons for destruction. Washington threatened military action, but was averted upon reaching the agreement with Russia.
Sunday was the fifth day that the team had been in Syria, and the first day of actually starting the destruction process. A team of 20 inspectors began the process of disabling and destroying the weapons and machinery.
“Today is the first day of destruction, in which heavy vehicles are going to run over and thus destroy missile warheads, aerial chemical bombs, and mobile and static mixing and filling units,” stated a member of the international mission.
Responsibility of actual physical destruction of the chemical weapons falls on the Syrians, while members of the OPCW are set to oversee the process, verifying that the weapons are actually being destroyed.
This is the first time that the OPCW has been called on to monitor the destruction of chemical weapons during a conflict, which makes destruction of the stockpile more difficult as many of the sites are located in combat zones.
An OPCW official in The Hague stated that “all expedient methods would be used to render Syria’s production facilities unusable.” He further went on to say that those methods will consist of explosives, sledgehammers, and pouring in concrete.
However, destroying combat-ready weapons will require more extensive methods. Experts will rely on incinerating the materials in sealed furnaces at extremely high temperatures, transforming precursor chemicals, or diluting them in water.
Damascus developed its chemical program in the 1980s and 1990s, building a stockpile believed to contain mustard gas and nerve agents sarin VX and tabun. Sunday’s expedition is just the beginning of the process of removing the estimated 1,000 tons of chemical weapons.
For more information, please see the following:
Al-Arabiya-Chemical investigators begin destroying Syria’s stockpile-October 6, 2013
Aljazeera-UN experts ‘begin destroying Syria stockpile’-October 6, 2013
BBC-Syria chemical arms removal begins-October 6, 2013
Washington Post-Weapons inspectors begin destroying Syrian chemical stockpile and machinery-October 6, 2013
