Thread by @gregkoblentz

The day after Syria declared in breach of #CWC and its rights and privileges under the treaty were suspended, @OPCW identified a new problem with Syria's CW declaration. For those of you following along at home, this is the 20th outstanding issue with Syria's declaration.

In its 91st monthly progress report on elimination of Syrian CW, @OPCW reports that it has evidence that Syrian CW site produced CW despite Syrian denials. Not only that, samples of CW agent were found in several large containers. Kicker: the agent itself was undeclared.

Note that @OPCW did not say it found degradation products or by-products of production--they found actual CW agent. Samples were taken in September 2020 but no indication of when the production itself took place. Another important question is the identity of the undeclared agent

Syria has already declared production of sulfur mustard, sarin, VX, VM, soman, and ricin (although last two were not part of original declaration). Most likely the newest undeclared agent is tabun. 2 reasons for that:

1. Tabun (GA) is the only classic nerve agent that Syria hasn't admitted to researching and/or producing. Tabun is reportedly "easier" to produce than sarin: bellingcat.com/resources/arti…

Tabun is the "easiest" of the nerve agents to produce:

pubs.rsc.org/--/content/cha…

2. There have been multiple references to Syrian R&D and/or production of Tabun from opposition sources including @EnAlwsl
en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/3…

Of course, there are other possibilities such as the vesicants nitrogen mustard and lewisite and the nerve agents cyclosarin (GF) and Russian VX (RVX). Of these, undeclared RVX of most concern and would indicate leakage of former Soviet CW info and know-how to Syria.

Indeed, former Soviet CW expert General Anatoly Kuntsevich was implicating in smuggling of CW materials to Syria in the 1990s: baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-19…

Kuntsevich lost his job over this incident: upi.com/Archives/1994/…

But he kept working with the Syrians until he died mysteriously on an Aleppo-Moscow flight in 2002. His death has been attributed to the Mossad:
ynetnews.com/articles/0,734…