July blast in Syria linked to chemical arms, report says

A Syrian military installation rocked by an explosion in July was being used to develop chemical weapons, and Iranian engineers were among those killed, a defense publication reported Wednesday.

Jane’s Defense Weekly said the July 26 explosion took place at the site of a joint Iranian- Syrian project to fit short-range ballistic missiles with chemical warheads. It cited Syrian defense sources as saying that fuel caught fire during a test to fit a Scud C missile with a mustard-gas warhead.

“The blast dispersed chemical agents across the storage facility and outside,” the publication quoted the sources as saying. The chemicals included VX and Sarin nerve agents and mustard blister agent.

On the day of the explosion, Sana, Syria’s state news agency, said the blast struck a military complex outside the city of Aleppo, killing at least 15 soldiers and wounding 50. The agency said the blast was caused by “the combustion of sensitive, highly explosive material caused by extremely high temperatures” at a military weapons depot.

Jane’s said that in addition to the 15 Syrian troops killed, “dozens” of Iranian weapons engineers died. It said the chemical weapons program was part of a strategic cooperation accord between Syria and Iran that was signed in November 2005.

The magazine quoted Syrian opposition sources as backing up the report that Iranians were at the site. They said vehicles destined for car bomb attacks in Iraq were prepared at the same military camp under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Syrian intelligence services.

Syria has never acknowledged that it has any such weapons and has publicly called for ridding the Middle East of them. Western experts believe Syria has a stock of chemical weapons.

Edward Djerejian, founding director of Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, said Wednesday that the Jane’s report might shed light on speculation that Iran and Syria are cooperating on the program.

But W. Patrick Lang, a former senior official at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, questioned the veracity of the Jane’s report. He said he thought it was unlikely that a Syrian defense official would reveal information about the country’s chemical weapons program.