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.

 

 


Britain ‘taking forward’ Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer’s office

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Britain ‘taking forward’ Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer’s office

AFP

The UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid

LONDON: British Prime minister Keir Starmer on Saturday spoke to his French and German counterparts and outlined UK plans to get aid to people in Gaza and evacuate sick and injured children, his office said.

“The prime minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance,” a statement said.

Libya detains 1,500 undocumented migrant workers in raid near Tripoli

Updated 16 min 58 sec ago
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Libya detains 1,500 undocumented migrant workers in raid near Tripoli

  • Al-Abed said: “These workers, of various nationalities, had no residency permits, no official passports, and not even health records“
  • The detained migrant workers will be “transferred to centers run by the Anti-Illegal Immigration Authority”

TRIPOLI: Libyan authorities detained on Saturday some 1,500 undocumented migrant workers in a raid on a neighborhood housing them east of the capital Tripoli, an AFP reporter saw.

“Saturday’s inspections uncovered housing units where undocumented foreign workers were living,” Libyan labor minister Ali Al-Abed, who was present during the raid, told reporters.

“These workers, of various nationalities, had no residency permits, no official passports, and not even health records.”

Libya has been gripped by conflict since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising.

The country remains split between Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah’s government based in Tripoli and a rival administration based in the east.

With Italy some 300 kilometers (186 miles) away, Libya has become a key launchpad for tens of thousands of migrants who risk their lives at sea trying to reach Europe.

The area targeted in the sweep east of Tripoli housed makeshift encampments surrounded by high walls and a large gate.

Hundreds of migrants — mostly Egyptians and sub-Saharan Africans — were said to have lived there.

Inside the compound, an AFP journalist saw a small grocery store, a butcher shop and vegetable vendors.

The labor minister said the site had “unregulated housing that fails to meet basic requirements for decent accommodation, health and workplace safety.”

The detained migrant workers will be “transferred to centers run by the Anti-Illegal Immigration Authority, and legal proceedings will be initiated against them according to national regulations,” Abed said.

It remained unclear whether the migrants would be immediately deported.

Earlier this month, a European Union commissioner and ministers from Greece, Italy and Malta were in Libya to discuss irregular migration from the North African country.

Migrants intercepted by Libyan authorities, including in international waters before reaching the Italian coast, are forcibly returned to Libya and held in detention under harsh conditions frequently condemned by the United Nations.


Nine killed in courthouse attack in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, Iranian media report

Updated 26 July 2025
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Nine killed in courthouse attack in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, Iranian media report

  • Jaish Al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Telegram account
  • Sistan-Baluchestan is home to Iran’s Sunni Muslim Baluch minority, who have long complained of economic marginalization and political exclusion

At least nine people were killed in an armed attack by the Sunni Jaish Al-Adl Baluch group on a courthouse in Iran’s restive Sistan-Baluchistan province on Saturday, including three of the assailants, state media reported.

Another 22 were injured, according to the report.

Jaish Al-Adl confirmed the deaths of its three members in the clashes with security forces in Zahedan, the capital of the far southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sistan-Baluchistan is home to Iran’s Sunni Muslim Baluch minority, who have long complained of economic marginalization and political exclusion.

A toddler and a 60-year-old woman were among those killed, as well as three soldiers and law enforcement personnel assigned to the courthouse, the head of the province’s judiciary told IRNA. He did not identify the sixth dead person. He said the attackers wore explosive vests and carried grenades. It was not clear if they had detonated them.

Jaish Al-Adl, which claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Telegram account, said it had killed at least 30 members of the judiciary and security forces. It said it targeted judges and court personnel, whom it accused of issuing death sentences and house demolition orders to Baluch citizens.

“We warn all judges and employees of the judiciary that Baluchistan will no longer be a safe place for them and death will follow them like terrifying shadows until retribution,” the group said in its statement.

It blamed security forces for the deaths of civilians, saying they had fired indiscriminately.

The Baluch human rights group HAALVSH, quoting eyewitnesses, said several judiciary staff members and security personnel were killed or wounded when the assailants stormed the judges’ chambers.

Sistan-Baluchistan is frequently hit by clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy. Tehran accuses some of them of ties to foreign powers and involvement in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.


Five civilians, three gunmen killed in ‘terrorist’ attack in southeast Iran

Updated 26 July 2025
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Five civilians, three gunmen killed in ‘terrorist’ attack in southeast Iran

  • Jaish Al-Adl group, operating from borderlands between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, claimed the attack
  • The region has been the scene of recurring clashes between Iranian security forces, various militant outfits

TEHRAN: Gunmen killed five civilians during a “terrorist attack” on a judiciary building in southeast Iran on Saturday before being killed themselves, state media reported.

“Unknown gunmen attacked the judiciary center in Zahedan,” the capital of southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, the judiciary’s Mizan Online said.

“Five people have been killed and 13 injured in this terrorist attack,” the report said while adding that the counts are “preliminary” and the toll may rise.

Separately, the official IRNA news agency reported that three of the attackers were killed during the assault, citing the regional headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

According to Alireza Daliri, deputy police commander of Sistan-Baluchistan province, the attackers attempted to enter the building disguised as visitors.

The assailants threw a grenade into the building, Daliri said, killing several people inside, including a one-year-old baby and the child’s mother.

Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for ‘Army of Justice’), a Baloch militant group operating from the borderlands between Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, mainly the Sistan-Balochistan triangle, but active inside Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Located about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, the restive province shares a long border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The area has been the scene of recurring clashes between Iranian security forces, including the IRGC, and rebels from the Baluch minority, radical Sunni groups, and drug traffickers.

In one of the deadliest incidents in the region, ten police officers were killed in October in what authorities also described as a “terrorist” attack.


At least 25 people killed by Israeli gunshots and strikes in Gaza, some while seeking aid

Updated 26 July 2025
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At least 25 people killed by Israeli gunshots and strikes in Gaza, some while seeking aid

  • Majority of victims were killed by gunfire as they waited for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing with Israel
  • Israel’s army did not respond to request for comments about the latest shootings

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: At least 25 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunshots overnight, according to health officials and the ambulance service on Saturday, as ceasefire talks appear to have stalled and Palestinians in Gaza face famine.

The majority of victims were killed by gunfire as they waited for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing with Israel, said staff at Shifa hospital, where the bodies were brought.

Israel’s army didn’t respond to request for comments about the latest shootings.

Those killed in strikes include four people in an apartment building in Gaza City among others, hospital staff and the ambulance service said.

The strikes come as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have hit a standstill after the US and Israel recalled their negotiating teams on Thursday, throwing the future of the talks into further uncertainty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering “alternative options” to ceasefire talks with Hamas. His comments came as a Hamas official said negotiations were expected to resume next week and portrayed the recall of the Israeli and American delegations as a pressure tactic.

Egypt and Qatar, which are mediating the talks alongside the United States, said the pause was only temporary and that talks would resume, though they did not say when.

For desperate Palestinians a ceasefire can’t come soon enough.

The United Nations and experts say that Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of famine, with reports of increasing numbers of people dying from causes related to malnutrition. While Israel’s army says it’s allowing aid into the enclave with no limit on the number of trucks that can enter, the UN says it is hampered by Israeli military restrictions on its movements and incidents of criminal looting.

The Zikim crossing shootings come days after at least 79 Palestinians were killed trying to reach aid entering through the same crossing. Israel’s military said at the time its soldiers shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians who posed a threat, and that it was aware of some casualties.

Israel is facing increased international pressure to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out.

The charities and rights groups said even their own staff were struggling to get enough food

For the first time in months Israel said it is allowing airdrops, requested by Jordan. A Jordanian official said the airdrops will mainly be food and milk formula. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote in a newspaper article on Saturday that the UK was “working urgently” with Jordan to get British aid into Gaza.

Aid group the World Central Kitchen said on Friday that it was resuming limited cooking operations in Deir Al-Balah after being forced to halt due to a lack of food supplies.

It said it’s trying to serve 60,000 meals daily through its field kitchen and partner community kitchens, less than half of what it’s cooked over the previous month.