Syria’s Assad regime, under Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, is believed to have first stockpiled mustard gas in the 1970s, but in the 1980s it began converting pesticide plants to the production of sarin.
The Assad regime now stockpiles tons of the nerve agent in up to 50 locations. But so far the regime is believed by outside authorities (including the Israelis, who are most concerned about a transfer of chemical weapons to Assad’s non-state allies, such as Hezbollah) to have kept control of its stockpiles of chemical weapons including sarin, mustard gas, and perhaps the even more toxic gas VX that the CIA believes the Syrian government has tried to develope.
