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Syria releases video of purported chemical weapons inspectors at work

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BEIRUT — Syrian state television on Tuesday broadcast footage of what it said were disarmament inspectors at work in Syria as a second team of chemical weapons experts was preparing to leave for the war-battered nation.

The video showed a pair of men in protective gear examining what appeared to be a chemical plant at an unidentified site. The two, identified as international inspectors, scrutinized and tagged switches at the facility and peered beneath a row of metal drums like those used to store chemicals.

The images are the first to emerge depicting the work of disarmament technicians who arrived in Syria last week and are charged with beginning the challenging task of eliminating the nation’s chemical weapons stockpiles under a United Nations mandate.

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On Tuesday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, The Hague-based agency supervising the mission, said it was sending a second group of inspectors to Syria.

The initial inspection team has been verifying the extent of the nation’s chemical arsenal and has begun to destroy arms and related equipment, using cutting torches and grinders, among other tools. On Sunday, the group said that some missile warheads, aerial bombs and other equipment had already been disabled or destroyed.

“These developments present a constructive beginning for what will nonetheless be a long and difficult process,” Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the disarmament agency, said Tuesday in a statement.

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One early goal is to disable all of Syria’s chemical weapons production facilities and mixing and filling equipment by Nov. 1.

On a broader scale, the experts are working under a United Nations deadline to rid Syria of its chemical stockpiles by mid-2014. The Syrian government agreed to the plan and has been cooperative with international inspectors, according to U.S. and other foreign officials monitoring the process.

The U.N. said this week that about 100 international experts will have to spend about a year to ensure the destruction of the nation’s chemical stockpiles, estimated at about 1,000 tons. The U.N. is providing logistical and security aid. The mission is considered unprecedented, both because of its tight deadline and the fact that it is being undertaken as Syria is engulfed in a civil war that has left broad swaths of the country in ruins and resulted in more than 100,000 dead, according to U.N. estimates.

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The wide-ranging disarmament blueprint stems from a U.S.-Russian pact hammered out after Washington threatened to launch missile strikes against the Syrian government for what the U.S. says was its use of chemical weapons in a series of attacks outside Damascus on Aug. 21. Syria denied carrying out the strikes but agreed to the elimination of its chemical stockpiles under international supervision. A U.N. resolution last month called for the destruction to be completed by the middle of next year.

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Twitter: @mcdneville

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patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

Special correspondent Nabih Bulos contributed to this report.

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