The United States is reviewing with skepticism the Syrian government's chemical arms declaration, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday as another official cautioned that intelligence suggested Syria may try to hide some weapons.
Under a Russian-U.S. proposal, Syria agreed in September to destroy its chemical weapons program by mid-2014, averting a threat of missile strikes by Washington following an Aug. 21 sarin gas attack in Damascus that killed hundreds of people.
Syria's submitted the lengthy declaration of its chemical weapons program on Oct. 27 and must agree a plan with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) by mid-November that explains in detail how and where to destroy the poisons, including mustard gas, sarin and possibly VX.
"We are still reviewing that document. We obviously bring skepticism born of years of dealing with this regime, years of obfuscation in other contexts, and of course a lot of broken promises in the context of this current war," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.
She noted that
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government had so far cooperated with the joint OPCW/U.N. mission, which has inspected 21 out of 23 chemical weapons sites in Syria. The remaining two sites were too dangerous to reach for inspection.
Syria declared 30 production, filling and storage facilities, eight mobile filling units and three chemical weapons-related facilities. They contained about 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, mostly in the form of raw precursors, 290 tonnes of loaded munitions and 1,230 unfilled munitions.
A second U.S. official, speaking separately to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said, intelligence provided "indications the Syrians may be intending to hold some of their stockpile in reserve."
The official said it was important that the international community keep the Syrian government's "feet to the fire" to ensure that all Syrian chemical weapons are destroyed.
The CIA and the Pentagon declined comment.
More than 100,000 people have been killed and some 2.2 million people have fled during Syria's 2-1/2-year civil war. The United Nations says around 9.3 million people or about 40 percent of the population need help within the country.
The United States and Russia failed on Tuesday to agree on a date or the participants of a peace conference to end the war in Syria, said U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Earlier, Damascus reiterated that Assad will stay in power regardless of a peace deal.
On the field:
A car bomb killed at least eight security personnel in a rare attack on a military intelligence headquarters in the southern Syrian city of Suweida on Wednesday, and a separate blast killed eight people in Damascus.
The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the car bomb in Suweida, hitherto largely spared violence in Syria's civil war, had also wounded dozens.
The Observatory's head, Rami Abdelrahman, said a colonel was among security officers killed in the blast at the regional Air Force Intelligence headquarters in the city, populated mostly by minority Druze. Clashes erupted after the explosion, he said.
The state news agency SANA said the Suweida blast wounded 41 people but made no mention of the target, saying only that a "terrorist" car bomb had hit a square in the city.
Earlier in the day, SANA said an improvised bomb had exploded in Hejaz Square in the crowded heart of Damascus, killing eight people and wounding at least 50.
The British-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, put the toll there at seven dead and at least 20 wounded. It cited conflicting reports from activists as to whether the explosion was caused by a bomb or a mortar shell.
Rebels have seized a ring of suburbs outside the capital but the army has blockaded these areas to try to keep central Damascus secure. Insurgents have resorted to improvised bombs to strike security and political targets in government-held areas.
REUTERS/LBCI