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Halab, Syria is marked where the chemical explosion reportedly took place. (YNET)
Hat Tip BG
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this (shocking?) news tonight:
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Defence Weekly report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.
According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.
Reports of the accident were circulated at the time; however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.
The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrians at the United States, accusing it of spreading "false" claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.
According to globalsecurity.org, Syria is not a signatory of either the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), - an international agreement banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons - or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Syria began developing chemical weapons in 1973, just before the Yom Kipper War. Globalsecurity.org cites the country as having one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Middle East.
Dare we hope for more "work accidents" of this type in the future? They certainly couldn't happen to nicer guys....
ReplyDeleteCouldn't happen to a nicer crew.
ReplyDelete++
ReplyDeletehere's another report with a few more details.. ;)
Dozens dead in Syrian chemical weapons experiment
excerpts:
[Dozens of Syrian military officers and Iranian engineers were killed about two months ago in an a chemical weapons accident, Jane's Magazine reported Monday, revealing new details on the incident which took place in a secret weapons facility.
According to the report by the British magazine, the explosion occurred early in the morning on July 26, in a factory in the city
of Halab, as the officers were attempting to mount a chemical warhead with mustard gas on a Scud-C missile.]
[The incident was reported at the time by Syria's official news agency, but the report only included information on the Syrian casualties and did not mention the Iranian representatives.
The Syrian report also claimed that the explosion was caused by a "heat wave" in the country, although the blast took place at around 4:30 am, and that the Syrian government rejected the possibility of sabotage.
According to the British magazine, the facility where the accident took place was built as part of a cooperation agreement signed between Syria and Iran in 2005. The joint activity included technological supply and assistance from Syria to Iran.]
the Assad Nancy et al kiss..
excerpts:
[Syria today is a prominent member of the chemical and biological weapons (CBW) club, and it is not a junior member either. As early as 1992, the U.S. Defense Department ranked Syria as the sole Muslim state possessing a "chemical systems capability in all critical elements" for chemical weapons. And in recent years, Syria has added biological weapons to its store—weapons with far more strategic value than chemical weapons. Budgets are also there, and in plenty. The picture of poverty that is drawn for the Syrian army's conventional ordnance is misleading. Syria spends between $1 billion and $2 billion annually on its ballistic and CB capabilities, an enormous share of the Syrian military budget.]
[Press reports have placed production sites for sarin nerve agent, VX nerve agent, and mustard gas in plants near Damascus, Hama, Homs, Aleppo, and Lattakia—all around the country. Some or all of these facilities were founded ostensibly as civilian extensions of the SSRC. Syria can also tap the production capability of over a dozen government-controlled pharmaceutical plants, likewise spread across the country.]
[The friends were many. Egypt's transfer of chemical munitions (which also included small quantities of chemical warfare agents for research purposes) was a onetime affair. But in the late 1970s and during the 1980s, Syria made important strides thanks to knowledge obtained from the Soviet Union (and later, Russia), West Germany, France, and Iran.]
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Here is more info on Sarin gas from the CDC. It's pretty scary stuff. Work accidents are fine, but what's scarier is that they were in the middle of ARMING scud missiles.
ReplyDeleteyishai,
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I've got a very personal interest in stories like this since my son, who's in the U.S. Army, is trained as Chemical Warfare Operations specialist.
What's beyond me is why, and how, the Syrians and Iranians could be stupid enough to think they could actually get away with using chem on the Israelis (or anybody else for that matter). I think it's safe to say that if the Israelis were hit with Syrian chem at breakfast, they'd convert Damascus into the world's largest ashtray by lunch.
And remember that Kucinich recently visited Syria, praising its thuggish rulers while condemning America.
ReplyDeleteWhat's bizarre to me is that they must not have had any precautionary measures in place, to avoid contamination in the event of an accident. They really seem like clowns, dead clowns now, but just clowns. Didn't they know how deadly this stuff is?
ReplyDeleteHey!
ReplyDeleteI think its time for Joe Wilson and Victoria Plame plan another road trip to see if the Bush administration is lying about this incident too...
Darn, those Chinese instructions are so hard to follow !
ReplyDeleteThis story, insurgents getting blasted into oblivion left and right in Iraq, Taliban boats sinking...
ReplyDeleteYou know, you'd think at some point a few of these muslimes would say, "Hmm, allah isn't helping us defeat the great Satan, but rather seems to be helping them kill us. Maybe we should reconsider whether allah wants this Jihad?"
No, DJM - that would take rational thought - something that's in short supply among those monsterish thugs.
ReplyDelete"You know, you'd think at some point a few of these muslimes would say, "Hmm, allah isn't helping us defeat the great Satan, but rather seems to be helping them kill us. Maybe we should reconsider whether allah wants this Jihad?"...
ReplyDeleteinsha allah
Syria, Syria, Syria.... as I recall everyone from Ariel Sharon to Saddam's top military officers claimed in the early 2000's that Saddam's WMD were smuggled into Damascus, Syria. Hmmmm..
ReplyDeleteWe had a friend over not long ago. My husband and my friends' husband are both active duty Army. The friend was Special Forces in 2003 and he was tasked with an undercover duty of traveling through northern Iraq into Turkey to meet with some Turkish officials pertaining to U.S. using Turkey as a base of operations for the invasion into Iraq. You might recall they turned us down.
At any rate, our friend was dressed undercover and traveling near the Syria/Iraq border in early 2003 (I believe it was late January) and he came across what he called "lines and lines of flatbed trucks carrying what looked like mobile laboratories."
Interesting. And after Israel PM Ariel Sharon claimed in 2002 that Iraq was moving WMD into Damascus.... we have this.
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ReplyDeleteAmy P @ 2:52 PM
oh yes, flashbacks (just a sample):
Syria's Role in Destabilizing Iraq
excerpt:
[Possibly the first noticeable person to warn that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could go to Syria was former UN inspector Richard Butler. He warned that when he worked in Iraq between 1997 and 1999, he saw intelligence indicating that suspicious containers were routinely moved in and out of Iraq from Syria, and that there was evidence they contained banned materials. Few realized what an impact Syria's role would play later in the future.
Intelligence gathering, including defector testimony, indicated that even in August 2002, before Saddam let UN inspectors back in, indicated that Iraq was still receiving WMD components and materials through Syria. Around this same time, Iraqi officials who defected to Europe in 2002 claimed that Iraq had ordered three shipments of Scud missiles from the Czech Republic, using Syria. Thinking the missiles and components were going to Syria, the Czechs had no problem supplying. The defectors say the Czechs were tricked, and that the first shipment of missiles had already arrived in 2002 in Iraq.
On January 17th, according to Italian sources, Saddam Hussein signed a secret agreement with Syria. Iraq would send three CDs of formulas and technical information about weapons including nuclear explosions; 3 test-tubes full of anthrax and botulinum spores; and detailed analysis of tests carried out with these weapons on people to Syria, in exchange for Syria harboring Iraqi scientists, technicians and their information. By the end of February, three Iraqi microbiologists and a small group of technicians would be at safety in Syria, and a top nuclear physicist and his team soon arrived in early March.
Former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, has confirmed that Saddam Hussein sent convoys to Syria full of "Iraqi equipment" that could not be identified, and that they could possibly have had weapons of mass destruction. He confirmed that senior Iraqi scientific and military officials who would have access to technical documentation and knowledge of the programs fled to Syria immediately before and during the war. According to intelligence gathering, the major transfer of WMD goods from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon occurred between January and March of 2003. However, the first shipments occurred even before then. In December of 2002, Israel claimed that Syria was hiding Iraqi mobile biological weapons labs, chemical and biological components and munitions. The shipments were reportedly negotiated between Bashar Assad's younger brother, Maher, and Saddam Hussein. Following their meeting, Syria agreed to harbor WMDs and officials should inspections begin again.]
[Syria is also responsible for hiding Iraqi government assets which would be later used to fund the attacks on Coalition forces in Iraq. Funding that could have been used to assist the people in Iraq, and to fund reconstruction, was instead used by Syria for anti-democratic means. Syria, who controls Lebanon like a puppet, is using that territory for its robberies. The Lebanese opposition says that billions of dollars from Saddam and his family were used to buy land in Lebanon as part of a money-laundering effort ever since 2000. A critical part of this effort involved a bank owned by Lebanon's prime minister, to help facilitate the purchase of large sections of territory in northern Lebanon; a hotel along the Mediterranean coast; and a construction effort of a huge hotel at Naher al-Kalb owned by Uday Hussein. Over $3 billion altogether was laundered in real estate and assets, and Syria received $150 million for helping with the efforts. Uday Hussein sent representatives prior to the war to Lebanon and Syria to confirm permission for safe haven in the purchased territories as well as movement of assets. The evidence of an Iraqi effort to shift hidden assets has been proven, as the US has launched a search for at least $1 billion belonging to the Hussein family that is hidden in Syria, Lebanon and possibly France. It is known that Qusay Hussein took $900 million in American bills and $100 million worth of euros in three tractor trailers from the central bank on March 18th at 4:00 AM. Colonel Ted Seel, an Army special operations officer, says he can verify the event and that there was intelligence hours later indicating tractor trailers crossing into Syria.]
Iraqi WMDs, Now in Syria
excerpt:
[They're selling it to al-Qaeda is one supposition. We know the Sudanese government demanded that the Syrian government empty its warehouse in Khartoum where they've been hiding illegal missiles along with components of Weapons of Mass Destruction. But there's no doubt these guys confessed on Jordanian television that they received the training for this mission in Iraq. . . And from the description it appears this is the form of nerve gas known as VX. It's very rare, and very tough to manufacture . . . one of the most destructive chemical mass-production weapons that you can use. . . They wanted to build three clouds, a mile across, of toxic gas. A whole witch's brew of nasty chemicals that were going to go into this poison cloud, and this would have gone over shopping malls, hospitals . . . .]
Terror by Chemical Bombs
excerpt:
[While visiting the United States in mid-April, Jordanian King Abdullah rocked the world with the revelation that his country's security service foiled a terrorist plot to kill up to 80,000 people with chemical agents. The carefully orchestrated scheme was thwarted just in time to avert a colossal disaster, which, in the king's words, "would have decapitated the government."
The primary target was the nation's General Intelligence Department, an intelligence service of world renown. The conventional blast and the chemicals it dispersed would
have killed for a radius of about a half mile.
Secondary targets were the prime minister's offices and the U.S. embassy, on which the terrorists were intending to use poison gas.
Authorities stopped five trucks loaded with 17.5 tons of explosives and intercepted at least one car owned by the terrorists, loaded with a chemical bomb and poison gas. The car was captured 75 miles from the Syrian border. King Abdullah said his country believes the terrorists came from Syria, although that government denies it. (The king was careful to point out that Jordan did not believe that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had any knowledge of the plot.)
Although greatly underreported, U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said in March that his investigation showed Iraq moved many components of its weapons of mass destruction program to Syria before the coalition forces invaded Iraq last spring.
A Syrian journalist, Nizar Nayuf, wrote the same thing in the Dutch De Telegraaf a few weeks before Kay's comments. Nayuf produced a letter from an Iraqi source detailing the transfer and the storage locations for the weapons.]
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ReplyDeleteIraq WMD located in three Syrian sites
http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php
http://tinyurl.com/8oj6e
(connecting link)
http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html
http://tinyurl.com/o49op
January 6, 2004
Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514
http://tinyurl.com/bx6ph
January 26, 2006
Iraqi WMD Mystery Solved
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21489
http://tinyurl.com/s8lsf
March 2, 2006
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ReplyDeletei'm not a great map reader, but Halab
seems to be in the vicinity of Al Safir
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BG, great comments.
ReplyDeleteAriel Sharon, Israel's former PM, made the same assertion that WMD crossed Iraq's border into Damascus on Israeli TV on Dec. 23, 2002.