(NOW-Lebanon) Michael Weiss - The Assad regime is withholding 27 tons of sarin precursor chemicals as "leverage," to quote the Washington Post, in an ongoing argument with the West about the fate of its chemical manufacturing and storage plants. According to Robert P. Mikulak, the U.S. envoy to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), "12 chemical weapons production facilities declared by Syria remain structurally intact" and "the Assad regime has delayed the operation [to eliminate these facilities] at every opportunity." Nor are these facilities in rebel-held or rebel-interdicted hot zones: they're fully under the control of Damascus in the network of tunnels and buildings which the regime built to conceal its chemical weapons program in the first place.
2014-05-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive