Other Names: Prva Iskra

Location: Baric, Serbia

Subordinate to: Military Technical Institute

Size: Unknown, reported destroyed in 1999 NATO bombing campaign

Primary Function: Initial development research for production of mustard and sarin in the 1960s.

Description: One source describes the production of 30 kilograms of mustard agent and 143 kilograms of sarin nerve agent at the Prva Iskri factory in the town of Baric up to 1961. However, another source describes these same quantities as representing the batch production capability of the facility, which suggests that much more agent could have been produced without actually indicating that it was. Around 1965, some initial work on scaled up production of sarin was reportedly undertaken by technicians at this facility. Ultimately, however, the bulk of sarin production was concentrated at the Lucani and Potoci facilities. Suspicions regarding this facility continued to be harbored through the 1990s, and the facility was heavily damaged by NATO bombing on 19 April 1999. This attack resulted in the release of a quantity of HF (hydrofluoric acid) into the local environment. This chemical was produced by the facility for use in household detergents.

Key Sources: General Zlatko Binenfeld, Production of Chemical Weapons at the Military Technical Institute – Mostar Plant by the Former Yugoslav National Army (JNA), Statement at seminar on "National Authority and National Implementation Measures for the Chemical Weapons Convention" in Warsaw, Poland, December 7-8, 1993, p. 2; Igor Alborghetti, "Yugoslav Army has 40 Metric Tons of the Poisonous Gases Sarin and Mustard Gas in the Underground Storage Facility of the Chemical Plant in Lucani," Zagreb Globus, 16 April 1999, pp. 18-19; Global Security.org website "Chemical Warfare Agents in the former Yugoslavia," <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/serbia/cw.htm> and "Baric Explosives Plant
Prva Iskra, Serbia," <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/serbia/prva_iskra.htm>; "Overview of ecological consequences of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia since March 24, 1999," Green Cross International, June 1999, <http://www.gci.ch/GreenCrossPrograms/
LEGACY/yugoslavia/lausevic.html>.

	Updated September 2004