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The French newspaper “Le Monde” said a new report revealed how Syrian authorities have been circumventing the deal to dismantle its chemical arsenal, concealing weapons at times, eliminating “suspect” employees and secretly importing neurotoxic drugs at other times.
In a joint report between two colleagues Benjamin Bart and Stephanie Maupas translated by Al-Jazeera Net, the French newspaper indicated that the veil of mystery concealing the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program had begun to tear apart, allowing it to evade its obligations. towards the international community.
The authors of the report explained that two non-governmental organizations, at the forefront of the fight against impunity in the Syrian conflict, namely the “Open Society Justice Initiative” and the “Syrian Archive”, submitted a report to law enforcement bodies on Monday. national and international research, showing in depth and precision how this program works. It has caused hundreds of civilian deaths since 2011.
This 90-page document, of which Le Monde, The Washington Post, Financial Times and Deutsche Zeitung obtained an exclusive copy, reveals how the Damascus authorities manipulated the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which was believed to have dismantled the arsenal. Syrian chemist.
The report is based on open source analysis, the use of data derived from United Nations records, and the testimonies of some 50 Syrian officials who have defected in recent years from the Damascus regime, after working at the Center for Studies. and Scientific Research, which is the government agency responsible for the development of Syrian conventional and unconventional weapons. Traditional.
These sources clarified the structure of this previously unknown military-industrial complex and the tricks used by the Syrian authorities to deceive the researchers of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. These stratagems were based on transferring part of the arsenal of weapons and lethal materials to the bases of the Republican Guard, on stalking, imprisoning and, in some cases, disposing of the suspected employees, and on establishing a secret channel to import products that form gases nervous like sarin.
Nerve gas
The newspaper mentioned that nerve gas was used in 2013 in Ghouta and caused the death of 1,200 of its residents by suffocation, angering the international community and crossing the “red line” drawn by then-US President Barack Obama.
The newspaper says: “Today, this new report, which delves into the mysteries of the Syrian Factory of Death, helps to understand the reason”, which maintained the suspicions that the regime had not completely destroyed its nuclear weapons.
Steve Costas of the Open Society Justice Initiative says his research “shows that Syria has a strong chemical weapons program, and that the OPCW member states should hold them accountable for their continued violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
After 3 years of work, the report was sent to 5 different institutions: the investigation and identification team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the impartial and independent international mechanism, which is an emerging structure of the Nations. United States that collects evidence of crimes committed in Syria, the United States Department of Justice, the Bureau of Investigation. Al-Federal, the German federal prosecutor who recently received a complaint against the Syrian regime in connection with the attacks in Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun.
Republican Guard stores
The newspaper noted that the most important piece of information in the report was the reissue of the story from the Syrian news site Zaman Al Wasl in 2017, stating that the chemical weapons stocks at the 1000 Institute in Jamraya, were moved 5 days before the arrival of the OPCW investigators to the warehouses at the 105th Brigade base. For the Republican Guard located a few kilometers away.
According to the report, the chemical program, which was implemented by the Center for Scientific Research and Studies in Syria, began in the mid-1980s under the supervision of the Air Force Intelligence Service, and is a maze of branches, institutes and units showing concern for the division to prevent leaks and penetrations of foreign intelligence services.
Le Monde said the experience of the chemical weapons manufacturing process began in cooperation with Institute 3000 and Institute 4000, and that experts from Iran and North Korea, who have alliance ties with Damascus, have contributed.
Although the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mission began in 2013, followed by American, French and Israeli attacks on the Syrian regime infrastructure in the wake of the attack on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017, the regime was able to resist, especially from branch 450 of the Institute 3000, which represents the nerve center of the program. The Syrian chemist, who was formally disbanded in 2013, is still working, possibly under a different name.
Testimonies from deserters from the Syrian Center for Scientific Studies and Research revealed new entities that were not known before, such as two workshops for the production of chlorine-filled barrel bombs, one of them located in Jamraya and the other near Masyaf, and they are discovered a site for the production of bilateral bombs near Aleppo, after its discovery. Close it in 1998.
According to several former employees of the center, the Israeli bombing in April 2018 of the 4000 Institute located in this area only affected the administrative buildings, and another airstrike on Project 99, a factory to build Scud missiles, hidden in the Taqsis Mountains, failed. Between Homs and Hama.
European participation
The most recent release of the report is related to the mechanisms for supplying chemicals to the center. The researchers, thanks to the Comtrade database (a huge trade registry maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division), discovered that between 2014 and 2018, 69 product categories were exported, potentially 39 countries are subject to sanctions against Syria. , including 15 European countries.
It mainly includes isopropanol, which is a precursor to sarin gas, and its commercialization is only allowed if it has a concentration lower than 95%. The Justice Initiative for the Open Complex and the Syrian Archive have identified companies based in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland that face legal sanctions.
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