There are growing concerns as to what will become of Syria’s large stockpiles of deadly chemicals, such as its many sarin-based warheads, if the regime is to suddenly collapse.
According to the Washington Post weapons experts have ranked Syria’s chemical stockpile as probably the largest in the world, “consisting of tens of tons of highly lethal chemical agents and hundreds of Scud missiles as well as lesser rockets, artillery rockets and bomblets for delivering the poisons.”
While many countries have signed the UN Chemical Weapons convention and destroyed their chemical weapons arsenals, Syria has refused to do so and has instead continuously developed an ever larger and deadlier stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
“The question about whether terrorists could take the weapons is a concern in any country undergoing a period of instability,” Radwan Ziadeh, a prominent opposition figure told GlobalPost. “Syria has many weapons according to sources.”
The weapons falling into the wrong hands could spell disaster. The deadly nerve agent sarin killed 13 people and injured around 1,000 in 1995 when it was used in Tokyo’s subway system during a terrorist attack.