Syria submits plan to destroy its chemical weapons - OPCW
Syria has submitted a declaration
of its chemical weapons program and a plan to eliminate them to the world's
chemical weapons watchdog, the organization said on Sunday, meeting the first
major deadline of the destruction plan.
Under a deal struck by the United States
and Russia, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
sent experts to Syria after a sarin gas attack killed more than 1,400 people
near Damascus in August.
The experts, supported by the United
Nations, aim to oversee destruction of chemical weapons production and mixing
equipment in Syria by Nov. 1, and deal with all chemical weapons materials by
the end of June 2014.
On Thursday, "the Syrian Arab Republic
submitted to the OPCW its formal initial declaration covering its chemical
weapons program" which "includes a general plan of destruction for
consideration by the OPCW Executive Council", the watchdog said in a
statement on Sunday.
"Syria's submission is in line with
the deadline," it said.
The OPCW, which won the Nobel Peace Prize
this month, did not give details of Syria's arsenal, which is estimated at
around 1,000 tonnes of chemical agents.
The OPCW deployment under a U.N. mandate
helped avert a U.S. strike against President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting
an insurgency that started in 2011 when his forces cracked down on peaceful
pro-democracy protests.
While the world's worst chemical weapons
attack in 25 years may not be repeated in Syria after the arsenal has been
destroyed, both Assad's forces and rebels continue to kill with conventional
weapons daily.
On the field:
A rocket smashed into the home of a family in the embattled Christian town of Sadad in central Syria, killing five people as al-Qaeda-linked rebels and soldiers clashed for control on Sunday, activists said.
At least three women were among the dead in Sadad, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. He said it wasn't clear whether the projectile was fired by Syrian soldiers, or rebels who have been trying to seize the town for the past week.
Abdurrahman said the rocket strike occurred overnight Friday. The Observatory obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground.
He says residents are trapped in their homes in the western neighborhoods of Sadad, which rebels have controlled since taking a checkpoint last week. Others have fled to the nearby central city of Homs.
Abdurrahman said the rebels belonged to at least three al-Qaeda-linked groups: the Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and the Green Brigade, which is mostly composed of hard-line fighters from outside Syria.
The rebels appear to have targeted Sadad because of its strategic location near the main highway north from Damascus rather than because it is inhabited primarily by Christians. But extremists among the rebels are hostile to Syria's Christians minority, which has largely backed President Bashar Assad during the conflict. Other al-Qaeda-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated churches in areas they have overrun.
Abdurrahman said Syrian government forces were slowly retaking parts of the town.
The official Syrian government news agency said troops had wrested back control of eastern parts of Sadad, but were still clashing in other areas.
Also Sunday, Syrian Kurdish gunmen clashed with al-Qaeda-linked groups to cement their control of a major border crossing with Iraq. The Kurdish militiamen captured the Yaaroubiyeh post in northeast Syria on Saturday after three days of clashes with several jihadist groups. Abdurrahman said the Kurdish gunmen were fighting pockets of rebels in southern Yaaroubiyeh.
AP/REUTERS