New details of Syria’s weapons programs have been reported, indicating that chemical weapons may have been destroyed in the Israeli strike as well.
According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, the Israeli air strike was ordered after an accident involving a joint Syrian-Iranian team that was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile.
Jane’s reports that an accident involving the same facility on July 23rd released sarin and VX nerve gas into the air and killing “dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers.”
Syria’s government-controlled media reported the incident as an explosion at an explosives storage facility near Aleppo “due to the heat.”
It has long been known that Syria has an advanced chemical weapons program, which it launched in 1973, just prior to the Yom Kippur War.
Syria Appointed to UN’s Nuclear Watch Group
Syria was appointed deputy chairman of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference Monday.
The conference is taking place in Vienna, Austria this week.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency boasted that the nation had already succeeded in putting Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the conference’s agenda. The item is entitled: "Israeli nuclear capabilities and threat." Iran is not referred to by name on the agenda.