Inspectors arrive in Syria to oversee destruction of chemical weapons
Twenty inspectors from a Netherlands-based chemical weapons watchdog crossed into Syria from Lebanon on their way to Damascus to begin their complex mission of finding, dismantling and ultimately destroying an estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal.
An advance group of international inspectors arrived in Syria yesterday to begin the ambitious task of overseeing the destruction of President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons programme, kicking off a mission that must navigate the country's bloody civil war as well as the international spotlight.
Twenty inspectors from a Netherlands-based chemical weapons watchdog crossed into Syria from Lebanon on their way to Damascus to begin their complex mission of finding, dismantling and ultimately destroying an estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal.
The experts have about nine months to complete the task, the shortest deadline that experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have ever faced in any nation, and their first mission in a country at war.
Experts at The Hague, where the OPCW is based, said the inspectors' priority was to achieve the first milestone of helping Syria scrap its ability to manufacture chemical weapons by a November 1 deadline, using every means possible. That may include smashing mixing equipment with sledgehammers, blowing up delivery missiles, driving tanks over empty shells and running machines without lubricant so they seize up.
The inspectors' mission was born out of a deadly chemical attack on opposition-held suburbs of Damascus on August 21.