• March 28, 2024

High Ranking Syrian Defector: Assad Kept Hundreds of Tons of Sarin Gas

General Zaher al-Sakat, a high ranking official in the Syrian army until his defection in 2013 says he has personal knowledge that Assad only claimed half of the sarin nerve gas he actually had.

From the UK Telegraph:

 President Bashar al-Assad continues to retain hundreds of tonnes of his country’s chemical stockpile after deceiving United Nations inspectors sent in to dismantle it, according to Syria’s former chemical weapons research chief and other experts.

Brigadier-General Zaher al-Sakat – who served as head of chemical warfare in the powerful 5th Division of the military until he defected in 2013 – told The Telegraph that Assad’s regime failed to declare large amounts of sarin and its precursor chemicals. …

“They [the regime] admitted only to 1,300 tonnes, but we knew in reality they had nearly double that,” said Brig Gen Sakat, who was one of the most senior figures in the country’s chemical programme. “They had at least 2,000 tonnes. At least.”

Sakat has said in the past that he himself was ordered to carry out chemical strikes on three different occasions before he defected. In those instances he switched out the deadly agents in the bombs for harmless chemicals.

“I couldn’t believe at the beginning that Assad would use these weapons on his people,” he said. “I could not stand and watch the genocide. I couldn’t hurt my own people.”

Putin and Assad are trying to run the clock out.  Russia is calling for an investigation that they can stonewall from here to eternity and Assad is agreeing for a search of their weapons, which means they have already been moved.  Last year, the OPCW reported to the United nations that they had found evidence of chemical warfare agents in Syria after all of the stockpiles were allegedly destroyed.

 

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