Residents of the adjoining state security facility in the Damascus district of Jaramana always believed that something odd was going on there. The government compound was closely secured, walled off, and only the regime soldiers could enter.
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Locals therefore hurried to witness the scene for themselves when Islamist rebels overthrew Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad in December. They discovered what looked to be an explosives workshop and what looks to be a covert laboratory filled with potentially hazardous materials that might be used to produce illegal drugs or chemical weapons.
Along with a unit from the Syrian Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets, a CNN crew led by Jomana Karadsheh visited the location last month and saw firsthand how their chemical agent detectors constantly went off, signalling the presence of dangerous materials. CNN provided independent specialists with images and videos of the facility. They claimed that it was obvious that this was a chemical lab, most likely one utilised for research rather than manufacturing. According to the specialists and the White Helmets, further research was required to determine the precise nature of the activities at the centre.
This entails expert sample testing as well as a careful examination of the location and any discovered papers. The United States and others accused the Assad regime of engaging in illicit drug production and trafficking. Since the fall of the dictatorship, a film purportedly demonstrating proof of a large-scale manufacture of the extremely addictive narcotic captagon has surfaced.
However, academics and international monitoring organisations have long claimed that the former government was producing chemical weapons in spite of signing a treaty that forbids them and has used chemical agents in assaults against its own citizens. Sarin, a nerve toxin, was used in Syria in 2013, according to “clear and convincing evidence,” according to the UN.
Although the group stated it could not confirm this until more specialised testing has been done, Farouq Habib, the deputy general manager of the White Helmets, told CNN that he thought the site was a research lab linked to the Assad regime’s chemical weapons programs.
While looking over records discovered at the location, he told CNN, “The regime claimed many years ago that it had disposed of all its chemical weapons, but we knew that (it) kept using them.”
