Greg Koblentz, member of the Center’s Scientists Working Group of Chemical and Biological Threats, co-authored an op-ed in Foreign Affairs about eradicated the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal.
The overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after 13 years of civil war happened more quickly and with far less bloodshed than anyone expected. It was especially surprising that the Assad regime ended with a whimper and not a cloud of poison gas. During the course of Syria’s brutal civil war, Assad used chemical weapons more than 300 times against his own citizens, causing thousands of casualties. The worst such attack was a barrage of sarin-filled rockets launched against the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013 that killed an estimated 1,400 people. Haunting pictures of rows of small bodies covered in white sheets—some of the 400 children who were poisoned in the attack—became emblematic of the Assad regime’s cruelty. Thankfully, a similar scene did not repeat itself as rebel groups advanced on Damascus as part of their lightning offensive.
Although Assad is gone, the specter of chemical weapons still hangs over Syria. Before 2013, Western intelligence services estimated that Syria had one of the largest chemical arsenals in the world, including sulfur mustard, VX, and sarin. Although Syria destroyed its declared stockpile under international supervision following the Ghouta attack, it failed to account for tons of nerve agent precursors, hundreds of tons of sulfur mustard, and thousands of chemical munitions that it had produced before 2013. In addition, there are worrying signs that the regime had sought to reconstitute its chemical weapons program by importing nerve agent precursors and rebuilding production facilities. Whatever chemical weapons Assad held on to after 2013, or had produced since then, are now unguarded and could be seized by the new government or stolen by insurgents or terrorist groups. Read more
