With concern over the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons stockpile reaching a fever pitch this week, international experts are cautioning against alarmism, saying there’s no confirmation that the Syrians are mixing weapons components or loading them into delivery systems, as some U.S. news organizations have reported.
Experts in the United States and Europe who monitor unconventional weapons said that President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime certainly has moved parts of his nation’s vast, acknowledged chemical arsenal. But that movement could be interpreted as reassuring rather than alarming, the experts said, if the intention is to keep the weapons from extremists in the anti-Assad movement who are at the forefront of recent rebel advances. . .