Could Al Qaeda get Syria's chemical weapons?
| Washington
Add to the list of worries about an extended and deepening conflict in Syria the potential threat posed by the government鈥檚 stockpiles of chemical and other mass-destruction weapons.
Mounting defections by Syrian security forces and recent bombings of government buildings are among the factors behind growing concerns that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad could lose control of what are thought to be substantial weapons holdings.
Syria is thought to have large caches of nerve and mustard gases, plus thousands of shoulder-fired missiles 鈥� weapons that the Israelis, Jordanians, Turks, and other neighbors worry could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
鈥淲e know they have a lot of nerve agents, blister agents, persistent and nonpersistent gases, and they鈥檝e weaponized them for battlefield use,鈥� says Jeffrey White, a defense affairs fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very big problem.鈥澛犅犅�
The concerns are reminiscent of those that the United States and other governments expressed about Libya last year as Muammar Qaddafi lost control of the country鈥檚 security installations and weapons depots. Worries over the potential ramifications of loose weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, were serious enough to prompt the US to put up $40 million to track down and destroy Libya鈥檚 weapons.
But as daunting as the task of finding and destroying Libya鈥檚 arms continues to be, US officials say Syria poses a bigger threat.
The Syria situation is 鈥渕uch more difficult,鈥� Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary of State for international security and nonproliferation, told reporters this week 鈥� for reasons ranging from lack of knowledge about Syria鈥檚 weapons stockpiles to the complexity of the region surrounding Syria.
Officials in neighboring Israel have already expressed concerns about the implications of any 鈥渓oose鈥� portable antiaircraft missiles on the operations of Israel鈥檚 Air Force. Others note that Syria possesses Scud missiles that could be employed to carry chemical weapons into neighboring countries.
鈥淪yria鈥檚 a much bigger problem. Libya was small potatoes by comparison, and we had a pretty good idea of what they had and where they had it,鈥� Mr. White says. 鈥淏ut Syria has gone to great effort to hide what it has, especially with its enemy Israel right next door, and it probably has many times more chemical weapons.鈥�
US officials worry that Al Qaeda may be stepping up an infiltration of Syria from neighboring Iraq and could take advantage of a power vacuum that could result from an Assad collapse. Recent bombings that struck Syrian security and intelligence targets look to be Al Qaeda鈥檚 handiwork, US officials say.
In Senate testimony Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the recent bombings in Damascus and Aleppo carry 鈥渁ll the earmarks of an Al Qaeda-like attack.鈥� He also underscored the potential threat that Syria鈥檚 chemical weapons could pose, were they to fall into the wrong hands.
The US is using satellites and other technology to try to keep track of Syria鈥檚 weapons sites and to watch for any signs of weakened security. But says White, who spent years in the Defense Intelligence Agency, 鈥淚t鈥檚 doubtful we have an all-seeing eye on what鈥檚 going on鈥� concerning Syria鈥檚 weapons stockpiles.
US officials say they have no indications that the Assad government is either dropping its guard of weapons stockpiles or contemplating using any mass-destruction weapons. While that may be true, it leaves the problem of a large but deteriorating army, White says.
鈥淭he bigger problem right now is that [some of these weapons] might be stored with battlefield units that are in some areas of rising instability,鈥� or with units that are experiencing rising numbers of defections, he says. 鈥淭hat could open the way to some of these weapons getting loose.鈥�
