It is suspected that more than 100 chemical arms sites remain in Syria, leave behind after the fall of the longtime president, Bashar al-Assad, according to the main international organization that keeps track of these weapons.
This number is the first estimate of its kind as a group, the organization for the ban on chemical weapons, tries to enter Syria to evaluate what remains of the notorious military program of Al-Assad. The figure is much higher than what Mr. Al-Assad has ever recognized.
The sites have been involved in the research, production and conservation of chemical weapons is suspected. Al-Assad used weapons such as Sarin and chlorine gas against Syrian rebel and civil fighters during more than a decade of civil war.
The number of sites and if they are guaranteed, it has been a mystery since the rebels overturned Mr. Al-Assad last year. Now, chemicals represent an important test for the guardian government, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, but has given up on its connections with Al Qaeda.
The stakes are high due to how fatal weapons are, in particular if used in densely populated areas. Sarin, a nervous agent, can kill in a few minutes. Chlorine and mustard gases, weapons made infamous in the First World War, they burn their eyes and skin and fill the lungs of fluid, apparently drowning people on the ground.
Experts are concerned about the potential for militant groups to gain access to scarcely guaranteed chemical structures.
On a surprise visit to March at the headquarters of the Global Chemical Guard Dog at the Hague, the Foreign Minister of Syria said that the Government “would destroy all the remains of the chemical weapons program developed pursuant to the Assad regime” and respect international law.
Experts are cautiously optimistic about government sincerity. The current government has allowed a guard dog team to enter the country this year to start working by documenting the sites, according to people with knowledge of the trip.
But Syria remains in a precarious point, while violence broke out in the coastal region in recent weeks between government forces and groups in line with Al-Assad. And despite the promises, the new government has not yet appointed an ambassador of the guard dog, a first key step that is seen as a sign of a country’s commitment. The Ministry of Defense of Syria refused to answer questions written about weapons, stating without elaboration that the questions were not under his approach.
In the early years of the civil war, the government of Mr. Al-Assad declared the offices of 27 sites to the organization for the ban on chemical weapons, or OPCW, which he sent to the inspectors to visit and close them. But Al-Assad continued to use chemical weapons at least until 2018 and research has shown that his government continued to import chemicals essential precursors.
The current estimate of over 100 sites comes from the guard dog and has recently been spread between experts and international non -proliferation analysts. The organization said that it has reached the number on the basis of external researchers, non -profit groups and intelligence shared by its member countries.
Some sites are probably hidden in caves or other places that are difficult to find using satellite images, according to researchers, former members of the organization of the organization and other experts. This increases the probability that some weapons are not fixed.
“There are many places that we do not know because the old regime lay at the Opcw,” said Raed Al-Saleh, leader of the Syrian civil protection, also known as White Helmets, a group of volunteers who says that he is working with the government to try to dismantle chemical weapons sites.
Nidal Shikhani, who guides the documentation center of the chemical violations of Syria and has worked for the organization for the ban on chemical weapons, said that his group has identified dozens of new locations that could be a stock of chemical weapons or former research sites based on interviews with Syrian government scientists who live in Europe.
Finding and taking control of these sites is important for reasons beyond safety. The inspectors also want to collect evidence for their investigations on the repeated use of chemical weapons by Al-Assad. International observers, independent researchers and Syrian humanitarian groups have documented dozens of attacks, with thousands of people, including children among the victims. The best known was a Sarin gas assault in 2013 in the Ghouta area, a suburb of Damascus, the capital.
Last year, Israel launched air attacks on different Syrian regime structures in which chemical weapons were found. But it is not clear if those strikes have destroyed chemical weapons.
Mr. Shikhani and others said they were worried that strikes simply create environmental contamination and destroyed evidence. International groups hope that chemical tests answer the key questions about the research of the Assad government and help with international internal procedures.
“The Israeli attacks that occurred immediately after Assad’s fall will probably not have been able to give an embankment in a bit of this, and potentially also the obscured efforts for responsibility,” said Natasha Hall, an elderly member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Sarin Gas is prohibited by international law. The rules are darker for other chemicals. Chlorine gas, for example, can be created using common house cleaning products. This makes it almost impossible to regulate the sale of precursors.
Syria chemical weapons program began in the 70s with the help of hundreds of government scientists, many of whom were trained in Germany and other parts of Europe, according to a former Syrian government chemist who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of remuneration.
The scientist worked in the division of chemical weapons of the scientific and army research center. That center, which is under international sanctions, has worked on conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Many scientists, he and others have said, fled from the country during the war, but others remain in Syria. The United States imposed sanctions for over 300 people and entities in relation to the chemical weapons program of Syria.
Despite the insurance of the new government, weapons inspectors are forming their optimism. They have already heard such insurance in Syria.
Syria accepted for the first time to get rid of chemical weapons more than a decade ago. But while the inspectors led their work, they convinced themselves that Al-Assad was not intended to reveal complete information on his stocks. The former staff members claim to have been perpetually hindered by the government.
In an episode in 2014, the inspectors and members of the Syrian staff were investigating a potential site when a car in their convoy hit a bomb along the way. Two Syrians who were in the convoy accused the government of misleading them and having assured them that the path was safe. Other staff members recalled that they were constantly afraid that the government was interrupting their conversations or spying on them.
The government of Mr. Al-Assad also covered the attacks in which Sarin and chlorine used on his own people.
In the city of Zamalka, near Damascus, the tomb stone marked the names of many residents killed during the war and the dates of their death. On the other side of the cemetery there is a tumulus of earth, piled up on the ground, its not marked meaning.
It was there, said a local official, that the city had buried men, women and local children who had been killed in a suspected attack of chemical weapons of 2013. When the Al-Assad government he regained the city in 2017, the official said, the government removed the plaque and covered the tombs.