The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fell after over 13 years of civil conflict and almost 54 years of his household’s dynastic rule.
While many Syrians throughout the nation and members of the Syrian diaspora cheered the downfall of his brutal dictatorship, many within the area and within the U.S. worry what is going to come of his substantial stockpile of chemical weapons. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mentioned in an announcement that it was monitoring carefully the developments in Syria, with “particular consideration” to the standing of its chemical weapons.
Izumi Nakamitsu, the U.N. excessive consultant for Disarmament Affairs, mentioned in an announcement on Sunday that Syria’s reported destruction of enormous portions of chemical weapons nonetheless can’t be verified.
“I reiterate that that is extraordinarily worrying,” Nakamitsu mentioned in an announcement.
Members of a chemical weapons investigation group take samples from sand close to part of a missile that’s prone to be one of many chemical rockets, in response to activists, within the Damascus countryside of Ain Terma, Syria on Aug. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/United Media workplace of Arbeen)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned on Sunday that the U.S. will “assist worldwide efforts to carry the Assad regime and its backers accountable for atrocities and abuses perpetrated towards the Syrian individuals, together with using chemical weapons.”
It is unclear what particular chemical weapons Assad had left on the time of his regime crumbling and his fleeing to Moscow. As a part of worldwide negotiations following Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013 and agreed to destroy over 1,300 tons of chemical warfare materials in 2014.
The OPCW mentioned that there stay severe considerations in regards to the completeness of Syria’s preliminary declaration in 2013 and “the destiny of great quantities of chemical weapons are unaccounted for.”
U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW Nicole Shampaine warned that Syria’s undeclared chemical weapons posed a “proliferation threat.”
Assad was not the one unhealthy actor to make use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians. A joint United Nations and OPCW investigation discovered that the Islamic State carried out chlorine assaults and used sulfur mustard gasoline in 2015 and 2016. Fears are rising round the place precisely Assad’s chemical weapons are hidden and what teams could achieve management of them.
Chemical weapons falling into the improper arms, notably ISIS or different terrorist teams, could be a worst-case state of affairs for the area.
ISLAMIST REBELS IN SYRIA CATCH ASSAD, PUTIN, IRAN REGIMES OFF GUARD GIVING US NEW MIDEAST HEADACHE
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the insurgent group that led the offensive within the eventual overthrow of Assad, launched an announcement in its newly created Political Affairs Department, asserting it has no intention of utilizing what’s left of Assad’s chemical weapons and dedicated to sustaining the safety of the websites whereas working with the worldwide neighborhood to observe the websites.
A big poster within the metropolis of Rastan exhibits the Syrian head of state Bashar al-Assad, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin as allies. (Photo by Friedemann Kohler/image alliance by way of Getty Images)
Despite the preliminary optimistic rhetoric from HTS, there’s trepidation amongst specialists and policymakers about how dependable assurances are from a gaggle that after pledged allegiance to al Qaeda. HTS is a chosen foreign terrorist organization by the State Department and has a Salafi-Jihadist ideology. The chief of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is needed, and the FBI is providing as much as $10 million for data resulting in his seize.
Some specialists who carefully monitor nuclear weapons proliferation are advocating for the U.S. to hitch forces with Israel to destroy the stays of Assad’s chemical weapons.
“Israel and the United States should instantly destroy any recognized, remaining Syrian chemical weapons capabilities, whereas laying the idea for resumed OPCW inspections and efforts to attribute accountability for the Assad regime and Russia’s previous chemical weapons assaults,” Andrea Stricker, deputy director of Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program, instructed Fox News Digital.
“Allowing such weapons to fall into the improper arms dangers terrorist assaults throughout the globe if such actors search to use their newfound weaponry,” Stricker added.
ASSAD ARRIVES IN MOSCOW, IS GRANTED ASYLUM BY RUSSIA
Israel already introduced that it has conducted strikes on a few of Assad’s suspected chemical weapons. So far, the U.S. has carried out dozens of precision air strikes focusing on ISIS camps and operatives, placing over 75 targets, in response to U.S. Central Command. The U.S. has not but focused the Assad regime’s chemical weapons websites.
The HTS assertion additionally famous that the Assad regime used chemical weapons towards harmless Syrians throughout the civil conflict, and the group sees these weapons as against the law towards humanity. One of probably the most ugly assaults was within the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013, when the regime launched rockets carrying sarin gasoline that killed greater than 1,400 individuals.
Rebel fighters stand close to the Iranian Embassy with a torn poster of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and late Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ prime commander Qassem Soleimani after Syrian rebels introduced that they’ve ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 8, 2024. (REUTERS/Firas Makdesi)
The OPCW concluded in intensive investigations that the Assad regime “positively or possible” used chemical weapons in a minimum of 17 circumstances throughout the civil conflict. Assad used an array of outlawed chemical weapons on his personal individuals. At his disposal had been “nerve brokers, akin to sarin, choking brokers, akin to weaponized chlorine, and blister brokers, akin to sulphur mustard,” in response to the Arms Control Association.
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Then-President Trump ordered army strikes on Syria on the Shayrat Air Base in April 2017, the bottom from which the Assad regime launched a nerve agent assault, and once more in a joint U.S.-UK-French coordinated precision strike in April 2018 towards Syrian chemical weapons services.
