Assad regime is rebuilding its chemical arsenal - OPCW

Foreign Policy magazine revealed on Friday that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) issued a confidential report that confirms Assad regime’s breach of the agreement of destroying its chemical arsenal reached to in September 2013.

That agreement provided that Assad regime would hand over all of its chemical arsenal, after al-Ghouta chemical massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 1500 civilians.

The 75-page report, which Foreign Policy said it reviewed, revealed that Assad regime is using the underground site called Hafir 1, as a laboratory to re-build its chemical arsenal in one of Damascus’ suburbs.

The report said that information confirmed producing samples of the toxic gas of Sarin and even the deadlier nerve agent, VX, in order to use them in chemical weapons.

The report pointed out that the samples that OPCW collected confirmed that Sarin gas was found inside in ballistic missiles like the Soviet Scud and Tochka missiles, stressing that the organization acquired evidence that Sarin gas was found in two mobile above-the-ground sites.

OPCW presented this report without giving any details in April 2016 in Hague Conference, adding that due to conflicting accounts and changing justifications which Assad regime gave throughout the past two and a half years, it had increased doubts about the intention of the Assad regime to abide by the pledge it made 3 years ago to eliminate the project of its chemical weapons.

This comes at a time when the US is trying to mobilize the international community in order to punish Assad regime for its repetitive use of chlorine in Syria.