The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fell after over 13 years of civil war and nearly 54 years of his family’s dynastic rule.
As Syria celebrates the end of a brutal dictatorship, concerns arise about the fate of the large stockpile of chemical weapons held by the toppled regime. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is closely monitoring the situation in Syria, paying special attention to the status of these chemical weapons.
Israel has already conducted strikes on suspected chemical weapons sites linked to Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has carried out precise airstrikes targeting ISIS strongholds and operatives, hitting more than 75 locations, as reported by U.S. Central Command. However, there have been no reported U.S. attacks on the Assad regime’s chemical weapons facilities.
Groups like HTS condemn the Assad government for using chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war, labeling such actions as crimes against humanity. One of the most notorious incidents occurred in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, in August 2013, where rockets loaded with sarin gas were launched, resulting in the death of over 1,400 individuals.
Rebel fighters stand near the Iranian Embassy with a torn poster of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and late Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander Qassem Soleimani after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 8, 2024. (REUTERS/Firas Makdesi)
The OPCW concluded in extensive investigations that the Assad regime “definitely or likely” used chemical weapons in at least 17 cases during the civil war. Assad used an array of outlawed chemical weapons on his own people. At his disposal were “nerve agents, such as sarin, choking agents, such as weaponized chlorine, and blister agents, such as sulphur mustard,” according to the Arms Control Association.
Then-President Trump ordered military strikes on Syria at the Shayrat Air Base in April 2017, the base from which the Assad regime launched a nerve agent attack, and again in a joint U.S.-UK-French coordinated precision strike in April 2018 against Syrian chemical weapons facilities.
