CBRN IN THEATRE
have been scheduling regular training of their staff s to best prepare them to respond rapidly to a CW attack. Israeli response is already starting to
take out Syria’s facilities piecemeal. In late January 30 January, Israel bombed a Syrian convoy of SA-17 anti-aircraſt weapons believed to be carrying weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Syrian television footage suggesting that
DOES HEZBOLLAH HAVE CHEMICAL WEAPONS?
Evidence that Hezbollah has been developing chemical warheads for its rocket arsenal is patchy, but the Israelis are making extensive preparations for CW and other attacks from Islamist rebels gaining access to a myriad legacy munitions from Syria. Any attempted weaponisation would likely come courtesy of Iran, alleged to maintain a stockpile of chemical weapons since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. A report in the Saudi-based newspaper Al-Watan in late
January 2013 reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad has been transferring weapons to Hezbollah from mid- February to March 2012, including two tons of mustard gas and long-range (3,300 km) missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads. The Syrian opposition sources also claimed the CW transfer to Hezbollah was carried out under the supervision of a senior Syrian offi cer, and that tankers carrying blue barrels labelled ‘Chlorine Acid’ were driven through Damascus, Zabadani, and Serghaya.
©The Israel Project
Right: Hezbollah is said by Israel to possess a staggering 40,000 rockets of varying ranges.
Below: Areas controlled by Hezbollah.
©Photo credit: IDF/Gili Yaari/Flash 90
Israeli Defence Force Home Front Command soldiers wearing chemical protection gear participate in a drill simulating a chemical missile attack.
the Syrian Scientifi c Studies and Research Center near Damascus – reputed to be training engineers in chemical and biological weapons development – was also damaged. Israeli engineering corps reconnaissance personnel have conducted several subterranean warfare drills to prepare for attacks from Hezbollah, which has placed its command-and-control centres in underground bunkers and have constructed tunnels where personnel and weapons can be kept hidden.
Have CW already been used? Evidence that regime forces were assembling CW munitions end 2012 has been superseded by unverifi ed reports of possible CW use. In February a secret US State Department cable report concluded that the Syrian military used ‘Agent 15’ – BZ, an incapacitant – against civilians in Homs in December. Based on interviews with activists and doctors, who said symptoms were too severe to be teargas, there were 5 deaths and c. 100 injuries. In April the fi rst real claims of a ‘real’ CWA being used: sarin – most likely “on a small scale” by the Syrian government – were made by US intelligence agencies “with varying degrees of confi dence.” Based on “limited but persuasive information from various sources” following two attacks in April – one near Aleppo and another near Damascus – where dozens were injured and showed symptoms of chemical attack, and on soil samples smuggled out to the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, the reports highlight during a rapidly changing confl ict the diffi culties in assessing states for true CBRN capabilities and without examining human samples, the real cause of their injuries. The US and other concerned powers are taking care to avoid a repeat of the Iraq intelligence debacle – and it may take months or years to confi rm what caused specifi c injuries and fatalities. If the ‘red line’ is crossed by terrorists and insurgent groups having acquired chemical weapons, it will be diffi cult to confi rm their use until medical teams, inspectors, and offi cials have fully examined and verifi ed the evidence.
Iran: forging ahead In January Iran informed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) that “centrifuge machines type IR2 will be used in Unit A-22” to replace the older model IR-1 machines at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz. The IR2s will be used to enrich uranium to fi ssile purities. As of February the IAEA were still banned from entering the heavily guarded Parchin site. According to intelligence fi ndings, the facility had hosted a ‘neutron initiator’ for activating nuclear blasts and construction of a containment vessel suited for nuclear-usable high explosives testing. Iran is carrying on its usual game of, according to former US
State Department offi cial Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “using the issue of transparency
40 CBNW 2013/02
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