Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- The international organization tasked with monitoring world's chemical arsenals on Friday announced it had sent inspectors to Libya to assess the condition of the country's remaining stockpile of chemical warfare agents (see GSN, Nov. 3).

When the rebellion against now-deceased dictator Muammar Qadhafi began in February, Libya possessed about 9.5 metric tons of mustard blister agent, less than half of the 25-ton stockpile it was in the process of eliminating under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

It also destroyed more than 3,500 unloaded munitions that could have been used to disperse the toxic chemicals in an aerial attack. However, Tripoli is still believed to have hundreds of metric tons of chemical weapon precursor material.

An inspection team was deployed to the North African nation "to evaluate the status of chemical weapons stored at the Ruwagha depot in the southeast of the country," the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement. It did not specify how many personnel made up the squad.

"The purpose of the inspection was to determine whether any diversion of sulfur mustard agent and precursor chemicals that have been stored at the site occurred during the recent crisis," the statement added.

The inspectors "confirmed that the full stockpile of undestroyed sulfur mustard and precursors remains in place," said the organization, based in The Hague, Netherlands. "The inspectors also took further measures to ensure the integrity of the stockpiles until destruction operations can resume under OPCW verification."

The visit marked the first by chemical inspectors to Libya since February when activity at the country's chemical weapons destruction facility came to a halt after a mechanical component failed, which prompted the international monitoring agency to withdraw its personnel. That happened to coincide with the outbreak of violence in the country.

Qadhafi was captured and killed last month, after rebel fighters seized control of the few jurisdictions still loyal to his decades-old regime.

On Tuesday, Libya's Transitional National Council notified the international monitoring agency that it had secured two chemical weapons storage sites previously undeclared by the deposed regime (see GSN, Nov. 2).

"We don't know the details yet. Once we receive more details from the Libyan authorities, we'll prepare our inspection team and send them to the newly found stocks," OPCW Director General Ahmet Üzümcü told Xinhua News Agency.

An OPCW spokesman did not respond by deadline to questions about whether the organization's mnadate includes a responsibility to seek out undeclared facilities and how inspectors missed the undisclosed sites in the past.

In its statement, the organization said it would "continue to work with the Libyan authorities to verify and destroy any newly declared stocks."

The organization did not provide a timeline for when destruction operations will start up again.