Image source: bldtna
On September 8, 2024, Israeli warplanes launched air strikes on the surrounding area of Masyaf in Hama countryside in the western Syria, killing and wounding thousands, as Israeli websites confirmed that the shelling affected the Scientific Studies and Research Centers in Masyaf.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (which is considered as opposition) said that the Israeli shelling affected the area of Scientific Studies and Research Centers in Masyaf, the site of Hayr al-Abbas, and two other sites in Al- Zawi area in the countryside of Masyaf, which led to fires in the targeted sites, and the destruction of buildings and military centers.
Reuters quoted intelligence sources as saying that a chemical research center locates in Masyaf was bombed several times, believed Iranian military experts were involved in weapons production.
Israel has previously detailed that there is a military base for Iranian forces and pro-Iranian militias in Masyaf, and The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), contains missiles factory plus a military center to produce chemical weapons under the supervision of Iranian experts.
According to a previous statement by former member of the Israeli War Council, Benny Gantz, in September 2022, Iran has turned the SSRC in Masyaf into a place for the sake of producing missiles, medium- and long-range precision weapons, which are provided to Hezbollah and Iran’s proxies in the region.
Western intelligence system reports which are published by the BBC in 2017 confirmed that SSRC in Jamraya, Barzeh and Masyaf produced chemical weapons, as the Center for Scientific Studies and Research was established in the seventies of the last century, in the western countryside of Hama, locates in central Syria, that was under the supervision of experts from North Korea, it was later affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, and in 2010 it became affiliated with the SSRC.
In 2008, the scientific studies and research center was established in Masyaf, and participated in the manufacture of chemical weapons, in cooperation with experts from North Korea, with supporting chemical activities in the Safira area in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, which belongs to the Center.
On September 5, 2024, the UN Security Council held a session to discuss the Syrian regime’s announcement of the elimination of its chemical arsenal and its increasing chemical weapons activities, in coinciding with 11 years after the adoption of the Council’s decision to dismantle the regime’s chemical arsenal.
In his speech to the UN Security Council, UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Adedeji Ebo confirmed that the information provided by the Syrian regime regarding potential undeclared chemical weapons activities was insufficient and led to new outstanding issues with Syria’s declaration under the Chemical Weapons Convention, bringing the number of cases to 26, of which only 7 were resolved.
In this context, the Director General of the Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS), Nidal Shikhani, confirmed that the sites reached by the Declaration Assessment Team – DAT represent less than 30% of Syria’s chemical weapons stores.
Shikhani said that the 26 unresolved issues which the UN mentioned that at the Security Council meeting, related to sites were not declared by the Syrian regime, explaining that there is evidence that the regime possesses chemical weapons stores.
Furthermore, the OPCW’s DAT team has come back over the past year with new evidence proving activities related to the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program”, Shikhani added.
The Security Council adopted unanimously its first resolution dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal on September 28, 2013, which committed the Syrian regime to the timetable set out in the OPCW Implementation Plan, following the Syrian regime’s implementation of a chemical attacks filled with the well=known fatal Sarin toxic gas on Eastern Ghouta on August 21, 2013, which killed about 1,400 people.
The OPCW began several preliminary inspections of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal on October 1, 2013, the actual destruction began on October 6, and the destruction of the arsenal was finished on January 4, 2016, according to the OPCW.
The Chemical Violations Documentation Center in Syria (CVDCS) was successfully able to document 262 chemical attacks, resulting in 2,423 deaths and 13,947 injuries, most of them civilians, during the years of war in Syria, stressing its commitment to continue documenting these crimes.
The Chemical Violations Documentation Center in Syria (CVDCS) emphasized on the serious need to completely get rid of all chemical weapons in Syria, and to end this program up by strengthening the partners of the competent international teams, enabling them to confront the manipulation of the Syrian regime, and stresses that achieving this requires effective international cooperation and throughout the continuous support for efforts to impose effective control over activities related to the production, storage and use of chemical weapons.
