Why chemical weapons remain post-Assad Syria’s unfinished nightmare

A member of opposition forces receives medical treatment after Assad regime's alleged chemical gas attack over oppositions' frontline, where is included in deconfliction zone in East Ghouta of Damascus, Syria on July 20, 2017. (Getty Images)
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Updated 16 December 2024
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Why chemical weapons remain post-Assad Syria’s unfinished nightmare

  • President Obama’s 2012 retreat on Damascus’s chemical weapons pledge left a deadly legacy still unresolved
  • Bashar Assad’s downfall renews fears over hidden arsenal as OPCW calls for safe access to inspect sites

LONDON: In August 2012, exactly two months after the UN had officially declared Syria to be in a state of civil war, US President Barack Obama made a pledge that he would ultimately fail to keep, and which would overshadow the rest of his presidency.

Since the beginning of protests against the government of Bashar Assad, Syria’s armed forces had been implicated in a series of attacks using banned chemical weapons.

During a press briefing in the White House on Aug. 12, Obama was asked if he was considering deploying US military assets to Syria, to ensure “the safe keeping of the chemical weapons, and if you’re confident that the chemical weapons are safe?”




A Syrian couple mourning in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds ahead of funerals following what Syrian rebels claim to be a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP)

Obama replied that he had “not ordered military engagement in the situation.  But … we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”

The US, he said, was “monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans. We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons.”

In the event, Obama stepped back from the action he had threatened — with devastating consequences for hundreds of Syrians.

INNUMBERS

360+

Tonnes of mustard gas missing from Syria despite admission of its existence in 2016.

5

Tonnes of precursor chemicals used to make the nerve agent sarin also unaccounted for.

Despite Syrian promises and, as part of a deal brokered by its ally Russia, commitments it made in 2012 by joining the Chemical Weapons Convention in a successful bid to stave off US military intervention, experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) believe that stocks of chemical weaponry still exist in the country.




Medics and other masked people attend to a man at a hospital in Khan al-Assal in the northern Aleppo province, as  Syria's government accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time. (AFP)

With the fall of Damascus and the toppling of the Assad regime, the whereabouts of those weapons is a matter of great concern.

The nightmare scenario feared by the OPCW is that the weapons will fall into the hands of a malign actor. Among the missing chemicals, the existence of which was admitted by the Syrian authorities in 2016, is more than 360 tons of mustard gas, an agent used to such devastating effect during the First World War that it was among the chemicals banned by the Geneva Protocol in 1925.

Also unaccounted for, according to a confidential investigation leaked to The Washington Post, are five tons of precursor chemicals used to make the nerve agent sarin. When pressed by investigators to explain where it had gone, the Syrians told OPCW investigators it had been “lost during transportation, due to traffic accidents.”




United Nations (UN) arms experts collecting samples as they inspect the site where rockets had fallen in Damascus' eastern Ghouta suburb during an investigation into a suspected chemical weapons strike near the capital. (AFP)

On Thursday, the OPCW said it was ready to send investigation teams to Syria as soon as safe access to the country could be negotiated.

Reassurance has been offered by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the armed group that toppled the Assad regime and has now set up an interim government, that it has “no intention to use Assad’s chemical weapons or WMD (weapons of mass destruction), under any circumstances, against anyone.”

In a statement issued on Dec. 7, it added: “We consider the use of such weapons a crime against humanity, and we will not allow any weapon whatsoever to be used against civilians or transformed into a tool for revenge or destruction.”

There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the use of chemical weapons.

Barack Obama, Former US president in 2012

The fact that chemical weapons might still exist in Syria at all is testimony to the failure of international efforts to rid the country of them back in 2012.

“Whether Obama had meant to say that these were real red lines, or they’re sort of pinkish lines, everybody in the region thought they were red lines,” Sir John Jenkins, former British ambassador to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, who was in Saudi Arabia at the time, told Arab News.

“That whole episode was pretty squalid. The fact was, Obama didn’t want to get into any sort of conflict, even restricted action, involving Syria — and a lot of that was the legacy of Iraq — and the Russians gave him an excuse.”




Barack Obama, Former US president in 2012

In August 2013, almost one year after Obama’s “red line” pledge, as the civil war raged and the civilian death toll mounted into the tens of thousands, shocking photographs emerged of child victims of chemical attacks carried out against areas held by militant groups in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.

By chance, a UN inspection team was already in the country, having arrived on Aug. 18 to investigate reports of several earlier chemical weapons attacks, in Khan Al-Asal and Sheik Maqsood, Aleppo, and Saraqib, a town 50 km to the southwest.

Instead, the inspectors headed to Ghouta. After interviewing survivors and medical personnel, and taking environmental, chemical and medical samples, they concluded there was no doubt that “chemical weapons have been used … against civilians, including children on a relatively large scale.”




A picture downloaded from Brown-Moses' blog, a Leicester-based blogger monitoring weapons used in Syria, on August 30, 2013, shows the size of the back of a rocket used in the alleged chemical attack on Damascus' eastern Ghouta suburb. (AFP)

Sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent, had been delivered by artillery rockets.

On Aug. 30, 2013, the White House issued a statement concluding with “high confidence” that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, which had killed at least 1,429 people, including 426 children.

Obama’s “red line” had clearly been crossed. But the promised “enormous consequences” failed to materialize.

In a televised address on Sept. 10, 2013, Obama said he had determined that it was in the national security interests of the US to respond to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike, “to deter Assad from using chemical weapons … and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use.”

But in the same speech, the president made clear that he had hit the pause button.

Because of “constructive talks that I had with President Putin,” the Russian government — Assad’s biggest ally — “has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons.”




People are brought into a hospital in the Khan al-Assal region in the northern Aleppo province, as Syria's government accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time. (AFP)

The Syrian government had “now admitted that it has these weapons, and even said they’d join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use.”

As part of the unusual collaboration between the US and Russia, later enshrined in UN Resolution 2118, the threatened US airstrikes were called off and on Oct. 14, 2013 — less than two months after the massacre in Ghouta — Syria became the 190th state to become a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, administered by the OPCW.

Syria’s accession to the convention was supposed to lead to the total destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles.

The fact was, President Obama didn’t want to get into any sort of conflict, even restricted action, involving Syria.

Sir John Jenkins, former British ambassador to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq

At first, everything seemed to be going to plan. On Jan. 7, 2014, the OPCW announced that the first consignment of “priority chemicals” had been removed from Syria. The chemicals were transported from two sites and loaded onto a Danish vessel, which left the port of Latakia.

Transporting these materials, said then-director-general of the OPCW Ahmet Uzumcu, was “an important step … as part of the plan to complete their disposal outside the territory of Syria.”

He added: “I encourage the Syrian government to maintain the momentum to remove the remaining priority chemicals, in a safe and timely manner, so that they can be destroyed outside of Syria as quickly as possible.”

In fact, as a joint statement by the US and 50 other countries a decade later would declare, “10 years later, Syria, in defiance of its international obligations, has still not provided full information on the status of its chemical weapons stockpiles.”

Not only that, added the statement on Oct. 12, 2023, investigations by the UN and the OPCW had established that Syria had been responsible “for at least nine chemical weapons attacks since its accession to the CWC in 2013,” demonstrating that “its stockpiles have not been completely destroyed and remain a threat to regional and international security.”

Over a year on, little has changed. In a speech to the EU Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Consortium in Brussels on Nov. 12, the director-general of the OPCW admitted the organization’s work in Syria was still not complete.

“For more than 10 years now,” said Fernando Arias, the organization’s Declaration Assessment Team “has strived to clarify the shortcomings in Syria’s initial declaration.”

Of 26 issues identified, “only seven have been resolved, while 19 remain outstanding, some of which are of serious concern,” and two of which “relate to the possible full-scale development and production of chemical weapons.”

This may have occurred at two declared chemical weapons-related sites where, according to Syria, no activity was supposed to have taken place but where OPCW inspectors had detected “relevant elements.” Questions put to Syria had “so far not been answered appropriately.”

Under the Convention, Syria is obliged to submit “accurate and complete declarations” of its chemical weapons program. The OPCW’s mandate, said Arias, “is to verify that this has indeed happened, and so far, we have not been able to do so.”

Meanwhile, the organization’s fact-finding mission “is gathering information and analysing data regarding five groups of allegations covering over 15 incidents,” while investigators have issued four reports to date linking the Syrian Armed Forces to the use of chemical weapons in five instances and the terrorist group Daesh in one.

This, said Arias, “highlights the ever-present risk posed by non-state actors … acquiring toxic chemicals for malicious purposes.”

“Everyone knew there were still secret sites, undeclared sites,” Wa’el Alzayat, a former Middle East policy expert at the US Department of State, told Arab News.

“Even the US intelligence community had assessments that there were still other facilities and stockpiles, but the more time passed, and with the change of administration, the issue not only got relegated but new political calculations came into place, particularly, I would say, during the Biden years, and also because of pressure from some neighboring countries that wanted to normalize with Assad and bring him back in from the cold.”

Twelve years on from Obama’s failure to act over Syria’s crossing of his infamous “red line,” it seems that an American intervention is once again unlikely in Syria.

Right before the fall of the regime, US intelligence agencies, concerned that Syrian government forces might resort to the use of chemical weapons to stall the advance of militant groups, let it be known that they were monitoring known potential storage sites in the country.

Just before the sudden collapse of the Assad regime, both the Biden and the incoming Trump administrations signalled a lack of willingness to become embroiled in the conflict.

President-elect Trump, employing his trademark capital letters for emphasis, posted on social media that the US “SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH” the “mess” that is Syria. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” he added. ‘LET IT PLAY OUT.”

It remains to be seen whether the sudden collapse of the Assad regime has altered this calculation. What is certain, however, is that chemical weaponry remains at large in Syria and HTS is now under international pressure to allow OPCW inspectors into the country, for the sake of the entire region.

 

 


Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan

Updated 16 sec ago
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Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan

  • The Belgian pair went missing as heavy rain caused flash floods across the country

JORDAN: The bodies were evacuated from the area, and an official investigation into the incident has been launched to determine the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

A major search and rescue operation had been launched in Jordan after flash floods ripped through vast parts of the country at the weekend.

Hundreds of tourists were evacuated on Sunday as the floodwaters continued to rise.

The Petra Development of Tourism and Region Authority said heavy rain triggered flash floods in the city on Sunday.

A Public Security Directorate spokesman said specialized teams of personnel from Civil Defense, local police directorates, and the Gendarmerie Forces, conducted extensive search operations under what they described as “challenging weather conditions and difficult terrain”.

“Their efforts extended over many hours before the two victims were found deceased”, the report added.

Yazan Mahadin, commissioner of Petra Archaeology Park and Tourism at PDTRA said most of 1,785 tourists that visited on Sunday had been evacuated.

A further 14 who were trapped by floodwaters in the Western Ma’an Police Directorate were rescued uninjured.

Meanwhile a separate team was sent to Tafileh to search for a teenager who went missing while herding sheep in the Hasa area. 

The areas evacuated by the civil defense were Al-Khazneh, the Siq, the Roman Soldier’s Tomb, the Monastery, and the slopes of Prophet Harun.

Ticket sales to all major tourist attractions were suspended as a safety precaution, and the PDTRA is encouraging people to avoid flood paths and low-lying areas.


Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border

Updated 05 May 2025
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Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border

CAIRO: The Lebanese Army seized large quantities of Captagon pills in a raid on a manufacturing plant on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the Lebanese News Agency reported on Monday. 

An army unit, supported by a patrol from the Directorate of Intelligence, seized large quantities of pills in addition to equipment for producing Captagon, along with raw materials used in drug manufacturing. 


Israel approves Gaza ‘conquest’ plan, eyes expanded offensive and civilian relocation

Updated 6 min 55 sec ago
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Israel approves Gaza ‘conquest’ plan, eyes expanded offensive and civilian relocation

  • Netanyahu continues to promotes Trump’s plan for the voluntary departure of Gazans
  • Israel already controls about half of Gaza, including a border buffer zone and key corridors, forcing Palestinians into increasingly crowded area
  • Earlier on Monday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said two Israeli airstrikes killed at least 19 people
  • Israel’s security cabinet approved the possibility of humanitarian distribution in Gaza

TEL AVIV/GAZA STRIP: Israeli ministers on Monday agreed to ramp up the war against Hamas in Gaza, an official said, with plans to capture more territory in the beleaguered Palestinian enclave and call up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers.

An Israeli political source told AFP that Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan that includes the “conquest” of the Gaza Strip and continued promotion of emigration for Gazans. The source said the plan entails "the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection," adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “continues to promote” US President Donald Trump’s plan for the voluntary departure of Gazans.

The plan, which the official said would be gradual, could mark a significant escalation in the fighting, which resumed in mid-March after Israel and Hamas failed to agree on extending an eight-week truce. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. 

An Israeli campaign group said Monday that the plan adopted by Israel's security cabinet is “sacrificing” hostages held in the Palestinian territory.

“The plan approved by the cabinet deserves to be called the 'Smotrich-Netanyahu Plan' for sacrificing the hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement, in a reference to far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Netanyahu. 

On Sunday, Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the army was calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers and would “operate in additional areas” in Gaza while continuing to strike militant infrastructure.

Israel already controls roughly half of Gaza’s territory, including a buffer zone along the border and three east-west corridors across the Strip, squeezing war-weary Palestinians into ever smaller and more densely populated pockets of land.

For weeks, Israel has sought to pressure Hamas into showing greater flexibility in ceasefire negotiations. In early March, it halted the entry of humanitarian aid — a ban that remains in place and has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis. Hunger is widespread, and desperation has fueled looting and civil unrest.

Israeli Airstrikes

Earlier on Monday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said two Israeli airstrikes killed at least 19 people in the territory’s north. “Our teams found 15 martyrs and 10 wounded, mostly children and women, after an Israeli strike on three apartments” northwest of Gaza City, said agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal. Four more were killed in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, he added.

Since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, more than 2,600 people — many women and children — have been killed, according to local health officials. The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Israel says 59 captives remain in Gaza, though roughly 35 are believed to be dead.

The war has displaced more than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and turned large swaths of the enclave into a devastated moonscape. According to Palestinian health officials, over 52,000 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive, though their count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Humanitarian Distribution

Later in the day, Israel’s security cabinet also approved the “possibility of humanitarian distribution” in Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade for over two months. “The cabinet approved by a large majority the possibility of a humanitarian distribution, if necessary, to prevent Hamas from taking control of the supplies and to destroy its governance capabilities,” the political source told AFP. “During the cabinet discussion, it was mentioned that there is currently enough food in Gaza,” the source added.

The previous ceasefire had been expected to lead to negotiations toward ending the war, but those talks have repeatedly broken down over disagreements about the final outcome. Israel insists the war will continue until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas has demanded a permanent ceasefire as part of any deal.


Yemen’s Houthis blame US for fresh strikes

Updated 05 May 2025
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Yemen’s Houthis blame US for fresh strikes

  • The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians

SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis on Monday blamed Washington for around 10 strikes in and around the capital Sanaa, as the United States pursues its campaign against the Iran-backed force.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said two US strikes had targeted Arbaeen street in the capital, another the airport road, having earlier reported two strikes it blamed on “American aggression” and a series of prior bombardments on Sanaa.
The Houthi administration’s health ministry said 14 people were wounded in the Sawan neighborhood, according to Saba.
An AFP journalist heard loud explosions in the capital, which has been controlled by the Houthis since 2014.
The bombardment follows a Houthi strike against Washington’s ally Israel, which hit the perimeter of the country’s main airport on Sunday.
Eight people were wounded in US strikes on Sanaa in late April, according to the Houthis, who also reported strikes in other parts of the country, including their stronghold Saada in the north.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians.
The Houthis had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war.
But in March, they threatened to resume attacks on international shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The move triggered a response from the US military, which began hammering the Houthis with near-daily air strikes starting March 15 in a bid to keep them from threatening shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
US strikes on the Houthis began under former president Joe Biden, but intensified under his successor Donald Trump.
Since March, the United States says it has struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen.
 

 


Sultan of Oman reaffirms strong ties during visit to Algeria

Updated 05 May 2025
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Sultan of Oman reaffirms strong ties during visit to Algeria

  • The Omani leader is on a 2-day visit to Algeria
  • Delegation includes foreign, defense ministers

LONDON: Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tarik met Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday to discuss fraternal ties between their nations.

At the sultan’s residence in the capital, Algiers, the leaders affirmed their commitment to enhancing relations to benefit their countries, the Oman News Agency reported.

The Omani leader is on a two-day visit to Algeria. On Sunday, Tebboune received him at Houari Boumediene International Airport amid an official reception.

Several ministers and officials in the Omani delegation include Sayyid Shihab bin Tariq Al-Said, deputy prime minister for defense affairs, and Sayyid Badr Hamad Al-Busaidi, minister of foreign affairs.