Non-Subscriber Extract
Chemical romance - Syria's unconventional affair develops
By Bhupendra Jasani
17 February 2009
Iraq became the 186th country to become a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention on 14 January. This may assuage regional concerns over unconventional weapons, but developments elsewhere in the Middle East suggest prevention of chemical weapons development is failing.
Satellite images from several commercial sources gathered from 2005 to 2008 have shed light on activity at the chemical weapons facility identified as Al Safir in northwest Syria. Imagery obtained by DigitalGlobe's WorldView-1 satellite indicates that the site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility, but that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility's production plant and adjacent missile base.
Image: A newly constructed possible missile loading building at the adjacent missile support facility. (GeoEye/INTA - Space Turk)
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