Report: Assad Retained Chemical Arsenal

PhotoSerg/ shutterstock.com United States intelligence agencies have confirmed that Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, remains in possession of chemical weapons, The Times of Israel reported.

In 2013, Assad capitulated to international demands that he relinquish Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal after his regime used sarin gas against civilians in Damascus.

The Times referenced a report in The Wall Street Journal, which cited American intelligence reports that the Assad regime still holds “caches of even deadlier nerve agents.” US officials are concerned that Assad will either channel these weapons to terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, or that the weapons will be captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) if his regime falls.

The Journal reported that during the 2013 inspections of Assad’s chemical laboratory sites, international inspectors only had access to sites that were approved by Assad, or which he declared as chemical weapons labs. Inspectors did not ask for further access to suspicious sites because they feared the regime would stop cooperating and bar them from conducting any inspections. In addition, the inspectors feared retaliation from Syrian officials who were overseeing their personal safety.

Bashar al-Assad
Photo by Valentina Petrov/shutterstock.com “Because the regime was responsible for providing security, it had an effective veto over inspectors’ movements. The team decided it couldn’t afford to antagonize its hosts, explains one of the inspectors, or it ‘would lose all access to all sites.’”

The intelligence reports confirm fears expressed last year by the United Nations and American ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, that Syria had not destroyed all of its chemical weapons. Earlier this year, Iran blocked an effort to issue even a “mildly worded” condemnation of Syria for its use of chemical weapons.

In April, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal noted that efforts to condemn Syria’s continued use of chemical weapons were blocked by Russia, one of the P5+1 nations that concluded a nuclear deal with Iran. Two months ago, UN inspectors found traces of deadly nerve agents at a previously undeclared site in Syria.