Worries grow about Syria’s biological weapons capabilities, intentions

After the Second World War there were a dozen or so countries with active biological weapons research programs, but by the late 1970s most have ended the effort. Two notable exceptions were Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Assads’ Syria (“Assdas” as in Hafez and Bashar).

The Post notes that the regime as much as admitted its biological weapon capability in a July 2012 statement made by Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, in a televised interview. In response to a question, he said that the regime would never use “any chemical and biological weapons” inside Syria, adding that the Syrian military was safeguarding “all stocks of these weapons.”

Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report for Congress that Syria possesses a “longstanding biological weapons program,” adding that parts of it “may have advanced beyond the research and development stage, and may be capable of limited agent production.”

Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Pincus that “We know that they went at least as far as research and development…. That means they’re far enough along to have capabilities. It doesn’t take a huge leap to get from there to having the ability to weaponize or finding some other way to deliver.”

In 2001, a declassified CIA assessment asserted that it was “highly probable” that Syria was developing an “offensive BW capability.” The Post notes that U.S. assessments have frequently cited the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Damascus, a military-run laboratory linked to covert programs for research on chemical and nuclear weapons.

A 2008 study of Syria’s unconventional weapons programs by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that the Syrian military had developed “probable production capacity for anthrax and botulism, and possible other agents.” The report added that delivery systems for such weapons were within reach of Syria’s armed forces, which already employs missiles and rockets tipped with warheads.

“So is the use of proxy or covert delivery,” stated the report, written by Anthony Cordesman, one of the center’s strategic analysts.

Jill Bellamy van Aalst, a scientist and a biodefense consultant to NATO and the European Union, says that recent – and massive – Syrian government investments in the country’s pharmaceutical industry could have considerably augmented the country’s biological weapons program, since much of the equipment acquired by Syria’s military laboratories in recent years is “dual-use” equipment which may be used for weapons or legitimate research.

Van Aalst, who has studied Syria’s weapons facilities for a decade as part of her research for a book, told Pincus that the country’s bioweapons program, whatever its size, is capable of serious harm.

She said that many of the basic elements of a biological weapons program have been in place for years, including a full complement of lethal human and animal strains, from neurotoxin producers such as botulinum to the family of orthopox viruses such as camelpox and cowpox, both related to the microbe that causes smallpox.

“You don’t stockpile biological weapons anymore, because today it’s all about production capacity — and in Syria the production capacity is quite substantial,” van Aalst said. “The dual-use nature makes it very cost-effective. In down times, you can use the equipment for public health purposes, knowing you can ramp it up at any time. These are very agile programs.”