Proliferating Thoughts

May 20, 2009

Syrian WMD

Filed under: Iran, chemical terrorism, chemical weapons — admin @ 2:38 pm

Its that time again. Pressure for negotiations between Syria and Israel, or Presidents looking for solutions to the problems that Israel has with its various neighbors often seems to result in new revelations about Syrian WMD activity.

This time we have a double barreled effort.

The first report is a little older, April 3rd, but I believe it is still part of the same process.

Well-placed Lebanese sources have told Jane’s that Iran has proposed a contingency plan to supply the south Lebanon-based Party of God (Hizbullah) with chemical weapons via Syria. (subscription only)

Secondly, May 12th:

Syria has reportedly rebuilt the structure bombed that housed the reactor bombed by Israel last year and has turned it into a facility for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons. Official sources sad that Syria had significantly expanded its biological and chemical weapons program by doing so.

This more recent article is actually a pretty impressive effort successfully combining concerns about nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in a single package.

Taking these two articles together we can easily come to the conclusion that Syria is a very dangerous country, certainly not one with which Israel can negotiate. After all, in addition to actively expanding its CBW programs Syria is working with the Iranians to supply CW to Hizbullah. Given the narrative in the West that frames Hizbullah as a terrorist organization we now have “substantive” support for the idea that Syria and Iran are supplying WMD to terrorists.

Where is this going? That is not clear. These “leaks” and statements could be intended to make it more difficult to pressure Israel to undertake negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians, or they might have a broader intent of undermining the Obama administrations middle-east plans including settlements with Syria and Iran. They might be tied to the upcoming Lebanese elections that the March 8 coalition, which features Hizbullah as a prominent member, has a significant chance of winning. Or in a worst case scenario they may part of a program intended to demonize Syria and Iran prior to Israeli military action directed at one or even both of them.

For any or all of these possibilities the accuracy of the assertions made in the reports highlighted above are not all that important. There is very little likeliood that any equivalent of the Iraq Survey Group will be investigating Iranian or Syrian activities in the near future so the accusations can do their work while remaining effectively unchallenged. Denials from Hizbullah, Iran or Syria will not have any significant impact given the difficulty of proving a negative and their unwillingness to allow any outsiders the kind of access that would be required to substantiate their statements.

In the short term these reports get added to the pile of unsupported public assertions to the effect that Syria is continuing to expand its CW program and that Iran is in substantive breach of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The matter is not anymore likely to be formally raised by the US or any of its allies at the OPCW than the previous allegations that Iran was maintaining a secret CW stockpile and production capacity.

Ultimately the extent to which the NGO or private-sector analyst gives these allegations credence, given that they will not see any of the secret source material that underpins the public statements, will be determined by their existing assessments of Syria, Iran and the WMD relationship between the two countries.

July 3, 2008

Suprising capabilities in Yemen

Filed under: chemical terrorism — Tags: — admin @ 1:52 pm

While doing searches at opensource.gov yesterday I came across an interesting report about activities in Yemen. When I saw “terrorist chemical attacks” I thought that i was really onto something important on the lines of a developing regional trend towards the use of chemicals by terrorists, follwing on from the attacks in Iraq in 2007. Admittedly including Yemen and Iraq in the same region is a bit of a stretch but it has been done before. Anyway, the article nd then a short discussion.

Yemen: Customs Step Up Efforts In Anticipation of Terrorist Chemical Attacks

GMP20080628416006 Alhadath (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic 27 Jun 08

[Unattributed report entitled: Customs Imposed Tight Security Measures At Border Posts In Anticipation of Chemical Attacks.]

Text:

Sanaa — An official source said yesterday that the Customs Department deployed 270 chemists and physicists at all ports of entry to face any threats to the security and safety of Yemen and its people with chemical weapons. The source said in a statement to the press that the individuals mentioned above have been deployed in all Yemeni land, sea, and air border posts. They have been charged with the mission of detecting chemical or bacteriological weapons that some terrorist groups might be trying to smuggle into Yemen for the purpose of targeting the safety of its people and territories. The source added that these precautionary measures are in line with the regional security changes brought about by the deterioration of security in the Horn of Africa and Iraq.  This situation, the source said, has generated concern among the countries of the region about the possibility that some of these weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist groups who will not hesitate to use them if they are given the chance.

The first thing I noticed in this report is that Yemen, and even more impressively Yemen’s customs agency, has 270 chemists and physicists to spare for this sort of activity. This seems a touch unlikely given that most developed nations do not have that many chemists and physicists deployed at their borders. I suspect that this is a classic example of poor reporting or alternatively a government trying to make its efforts look more impressive than they might actually be.

Unfortunately by making such a sensational statement the government official quoted in the report is missing the opportunity to highlight important achievements. I suspect that the point of the report is for the government to highlight that it has personnel trained to detect and respond to attempts to import hazardous chemicals or radiation sources. These may in fact be newly trained personnel but it seems more likely to me that these are retrained or upskilled existing personnel. They may have had as little as one short course introducing them to the question of chemical or nuclear weapons proliferation and transshipment combined with some training in the use of new detection equipment (most likely for radiation sources). This would be in line with ongoing efforts by the United States and other Yemeni partners to build the capacity of its customs agency, an effort that is not at all limited to Yemen.

Improving the capability of its customs agency to detect and interdict the movement of these materials is an important contribution to global efforts to reduce the risk of WMD terrorism. It has the further advantage of increasing foreign confidence in the ability of Yemen to administer its borders in such a way to reduce risk to trading partners which means Yemen will not be sidelined asa transshipment point. Of course the added benefit to the nation is that the improvements sponsored by developed world trading partners may signifcantly improve the ability of the agency to raise revenues.

It could be argued that a more alarming aspect of this report is that the Yemeni government believes there is a serious risk of chemical weapons or radiation sources being imported. This danger is probably being overstated by the spokesperson or the reporter. It is much more likely that a terrorist organization would be attempting to use Yemen as a transshipment point with a view to moving weapons closer to a more valuable target in Europe or North America. It is this transshipment concern that underlies much of the effort to support the modernization of national customs agencys.

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