Konflikten i Syrien

The entire main/upper floor of the lab is covered with thick layers of dust and debris, undoubtedly remnants of shelling. Shattered glass, books, small equipment and suspect metal balls form another layer on the floor, making it hard to maneuver through the rooms. Those who argue this facility has been “stage-managed” by the SAA face a hard sell – the dust bears witness to the fact that these devices were here before the Syrian army liberated the area the day before.

There’s one real standout in an upper room of the facility. It’s a newish looking piece of equipment with “Hill-Rom Medaes Medplus Air Plant” written on its front. A cursory Google search pulls up several interesting facts immediately – the machine is some kind of air or gas compressor, it’s a US-manufactured product, and Saudi Arabia put out tenders for this device in 2015.
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Is this a chemical weapons lab? Or simply a chemical lab manufacturing a substance used in warfare – like explosives?

Even if no banned chemical munitions are found to be produced at this lab, its discovery is a game-changer in the chemical weapons blame-game. It is now indisputable that Western-backed and Gulf-financed Islamist militants have the capabilities to produce the chemicals of war inside the battlefield – and not in the makeshift way that media suggests. This lab demonstrates that militants can amass foreign-made equipment, create production lines and procure difficult-to-obtain components.

It can no longer be argued that militants lack the ability, connections and skill-sets to manufacture chemical munitions.
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Three months later, in what is viewed as the first real CW incident of the Syrian conflict, 26 people – the majority of them (16) Syrian soldiers – were killed in the village of Khan Assal in Aleppo in a reported chlorine attack. The next day, the Syrian government requested that the UN investigate the attack. A few days later, there was another alleged chemical incident in Adra, northeast of Damascus, followed by a reported attack in Saraqeb, and then in Ghouta in August – the CW incident that almost triggered US military strikes. A Jordanian reporter on the ground in Ghouta interviewed witnesses who said the Saudis had provided militants with chemical weapons and that some had been detonated by accident.

In May 2013, Turkish authorities captured 12 Nusra Front militants with 4.5lb of sarin gas. Turkish media carried varying reports about the terrorists’ goals – one of them was that the group was planning to take the materials back to Syria, Nusra’s home base.

In June, members of an Al-Qaeda cell were apprehended by Iraqi authorities who raided two Baghdad factories that were used to research and manufacture sarin and mustard agents. Authorities said that the AQ militants had precursor chemicals and formulas necessary for the production of the deadly CWs.