Libya Reportedly Steps Up Production at Its Chemical Warfare Arms Plant

Libya is producing limited amounts of mustard and nerve gases useable as chemical weapons, U.S. officials said Tuesday night.

The Rabta plant 60 miles south of Tripoli also is now capable of producing canisters to carry the lethal chemicals to targets, the officials said on condition that they not be identified.

It was not clear whether dictator Moammar Kadafi is relying on outside sources for help in accelerating a dangerous program that a year ago seemed to have subsided under a barrage of U.S. complaints about West German firms and other foreign suppliers.

The officials said the Libyans over several months had kept the assembly line active but only toward the end of last year achieved what one official called a “certain operational capability.”

After West German politicians said a month ago that Libya had produced enough gas for 1,000 artillery shells, U.S. officials said the Rabta plant had been producing “very small” quantities of chemicals for about a year. Tuesday’s disclosure was that production has increased.

State Department spokesman Mark Dillon, without confirming the new report, said: “We remain seriously concerned about the Rabta weapons facility. We have continuously taken various efforts to assure that Libya and other proliferators do not succeed in achieving full-scale weapons production.”