Syria’s chemical arsenal a threat

BEIRUT — The U.S. and regional allies are closely monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons — caught in the midst of a raging civil war — but options for securing the toxic agents stuffed into shells, bombs and missiles are fraught with risk.

President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime is believed to have one of the largest chemical weapons stockpiles in the world. Fears have risen that a cornered Assad might use them or that they could fall into the hands of extremists, whether the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, an Assad ally, or al-Qaida-inspired militants among the rebels.

For now, the main storage and production sites are considered secure. However, some suggest the civil war poses one of the gravest risks of losing control over non-conventional weapons since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago.

Syria’s suspected arsenal is scattered across a number of locations, mainly in the north and west, where fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels seeking to oust him has been heaviest.

“We need to be up front that this is not something very easy to do,” Steven Bucci, a former senior Defense Department official, said of attempts to keep the weapons locked up.

The price of military action against the arsenal is prohibitively high, Bucci and others say.

Airstrikes on chemical weapons depots could inadvertently release toxic clouds or expose them to looters. A ground operation would require thousands of troops, and the U.S. administration has pushed back on any suggestion of direct military action in Syria. Pinpoint operations by special forces could easily go wrong.

The issue has been a topic in the U.S. presidential campaign. Republican nominee Mitt Romney has said he would send U.S. troops into Syria if needed to prevent the spread of chemical weapons, while President Barack Obama has said that movement or use of chemical weapons would have “enormous consequences.”

Syria’s secrecy compounds the problem. Damascus hasn’t signed nonproliferation agreements, long denying it has chemical weapons. Syria “is a black hole for us,” said Michael Luhan of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, declining to give an estimate of the size of the arsenal because foreign inspectors are barred.

Other experts acknowledge there is no firm data and say they base their estimates largely on U.S. intelligence reports.

Syria is believed to have hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of chemical agents, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. This includes mustard gas, a blistering agent, and the more lethal nerve agents sarin and VX, he said.

The chemical agents are believed to be designed for use in artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missiles, said Scott Stewart of the U.S. security think tank Stratfor.

It is not known to what extent the chemical agents have already placed in munitions. Bucci, of The Heritage Foundation, said he believed “most of it” has been put into artillery shells and rockets.

Bucci and Stewart estimate some 50 sites are associated with the program.

A map by the Monterey think tank shows four production sites: one 12 miles southeast of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a major battleground, and three outside the cities of Hama, Homs and Latakia. Storage sites have been identified near Hama, Homs and the capital Damascus, which also has a research and development facility. Three sites are marked as having dual use infrastructure, for both civilian and military purposes.

Anxiety rose over the summer after the regime warned it might use chemical weapons against foreign attackers. Obama warned Assad that the threat of chemical warfare is a “red line” for the U.S. Even key Assad ally Russia told him to stand down.

Syria has not used chemical weapons, unlike Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein. Analysts say the bigger threat is that the weapons fall into the wrong hands.