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Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile

(Wall Street Journal) Adam Entous, Julian Barnes and Nour Malas - Syria's elite Unit 450, at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program, has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials. The movements of chemical weapons raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said. "Attacking Unit 450, assuming we have any idea where they actually are, would be a pretty tricky affair because...if you attack them you may reduce the security of their weapons, which is something we certainly don't want," said Jeffrey White, a veteran of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a defense fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The U.S. doesn't want any strike to destabilize the unit so much that it loses control of its chemical weapons, giving rebels a chance to seize the arsenal.
2013-09-13 00:00:00
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