|
|
 |
| Home >> WMD >> World >> Syria >> |
|
|
Production facilities have been built with the help of Western firms. Most are controlled by the Scientific Research Council, also known by its French acronym, CERS Syria is now believed capable of producing several hundred tons of CW agents per year.
Four production sites have been positively identified, one located just north of Damascus, and the second near the industrial city of Homs. The third, in Hama, is believed to be producing VX agents in addition to sarin and tabun. Officials in Washington identified a fourth facility dedicated to the production of biological agents in Cerin, while Israeli intelligence is monitoring several additional "suspicious" sites.
Israeli Chief of Staff Ehud Baraq told an audience of leading industrialists in Tel Aviv on December 6, 1991 that Syria's chemical weapons capability was "larger than Iraq's." Several dual-use sites are also of concern, including a pharmaceuticals plant in Aleppo that was left mysteriously "unfinished" in 1989 after the Syrian government had invested nearly $ 40 million in its construction. Syria also runs a large urea and ammonia plant in Homs, and plans to build a $ 500 million super-phosphate complex in the desert near Palmyra.
Syrian CW factories have been operating for more than ten years, intelligence analysts agree. Stockpiles of precursor chemicals were purchased in the West in the early 1980s before their export was controlled. Unlike Iraq and Libya, Syria's CW plants tend to be relatively small, and as a result have been harder to detect. In addition to dedicated facilities, Syria can tap the potential of more than a dozen government-run pharmaceuticals plants spread across the country, which could be converted rapidly to produce a wide variety of CBW agents.
Since Syria simplified the procedures for foreign investments in a May 1991 law, the pharmaceuticals sector has been targeted by Syrian planners for additional expansion. New Syria companies are being set up almost every month, to negotiate licensing and technology transfer agreements with foreign suppliers.
The largest project of this kind has been announced by a well-known Syrian businessman, Saeb Nahas, whose GAS group is partially owned by the Syrian state. GAS owns a 51% share in the newly-formed Ibn Zahr Pharmaceuticals Company, which claims to be negotiating to build "one of the largest pharmaceuticals plants in the Middle East" at a cost of $ 15 million. Discussions are currently under way with companies in Germany, Britain, and Holland to obtain production licenses and manufacturing technology, and with the European Community to obtain export financing.
Similarly, the American medical supplier group, Baxter International, has contracted to build a factory to produce intravenous fluids for the Syrian military. Of concern in this case are the manufacturing processes, which could be applied to a broad-range of CBW activities, and the end-user, which is the Syrian army. Vigorous intervention by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with Baxter director, G. Marshall Abbey, caused the company to back off from this contract temporarily in 1991. However, it was subsequently reported that Baxter was attempting to complete the sale through the intermediary of an unknown supply house called Medport, located in Amhurts, Ohio.
Despite the attempts to attract private sector interest, the two largest pharmaceuticals conglomerates in Syria, Thameco and DIMAS, remain under rigid state control. Together they control a third company, Saydalaya, which serves as the foreign procurement board for all Syrian imports of chemicals and processed medicines Thameco is controlled the Syrian Ministry of Industry and employs approximately 900 people at its principle production site in Damascus. A second plant, built in Aleppo at a cost of nearly $ 40 million by a consortium of French pharmaceuticals companies in the late 1980s, was reportedly "abandoned" in 1989 because of financial difficulties. However, suspicion remains that Syria may have simply switched suppliers, in order to better disguise conversion of the plant to the production of CW agents.
DIMAS (the General Establishment for Blood and of Medical Industries) is directly controlled by the Syrian Ministry of Defense, and is the only manufacturer of serum in Syria. DIMAS is run by General Hikmat Tahrani, and controls a large production plant in Damascus.
Syria has used the expansion of its pharmaceuticals industry as a convenient cover for purchases relating to its CW program, since this is an area where is impossible to distinguish legitimate civilian projects from military programs.
The use of pharmaceuticals plants for poison gas production appears to have led to a series of accidents over the past year. In 1991, the Syrian Ministry of Health was compelled to close down five pharmaceuticals plants (three in Aleppo, one in Damascus, and one in Homs), following what were termed "complaints from citizens and doctors" that products "did not meet the required standards." Later in 1991, Syria signed a cooperation agreement with Libya in that called for Syrian experts to train the Libyans in pharmaceuticals production.
Major German pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and machine-building companies have helped Syria to establish its modest and well-dispersed production facilities, some with the support of official "Hermes" export credits from the German government. In addition to Schott Glasswerke, which continues to export licensed goods to Syrian chemicals plants, special mixing vats, high temperature furnaces, hot isostatic presses (HIP) and sophisticated machine-tools have been shipped with German export licenses to Syria's Scientific Research Council (CERS) by Ferrostaal, Carl Schenck, Leifeld, Weber GmbH, and other major German companies. It is not believed that these shipments were illegal under German law.
|
| Help Support Our Work :: Home :: Sitemap ||| WMD :: Military :: Intelligence :: Space |
|