People in the Jaramana suburb of Damascus always thought something strange was happening at the nearby state security facility. Walled off and heavily guarded, the government compound was off limits to anyone but the regime forces.
So when Islamist rebels toppled Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, locals rushed to see the site for themselves. Inside, they found what appears to be a secret laboratory full of potentially toxic substances that could be used to make illicit drugs or chemical weapons, and what appeared to be an explosives workshop.
Last month, a CNN team led by Jomana Karadsheh visited the site alongside a unit from the Syrian Civil Defense – also known as the White Helmets – and witnessed first-hand their chemical agent detectors repeatedly going off, indicating the presence of toxic materials.
CNN shared photos and videos of the facility with independent experts. They said this was clearly a chemical lab, probably one used for research rather than production.
The White Helmets and the experts said that more investigation was needed to establish what exactly was going on at the center. This includes specialized testing of samples and a thorough inspection of the site and documents found.
The Assad regime was accused by the United States and others of involvement in illegal drug manufacturing and trafficking. A video allegedly showing evidence of a large-scale production of the highly addictive drug captagon has emerged since the regime collapsed.
At the same time, experts and international monitoring groups have long said the former government had used chemical agents in attacks against its own people and was manufacturing chemical weapons despite signing a treaty that prohibits them. The UN said there was “clear and convincing evidence” that the nerve agent sarin was used in Syria in 2013.
Farouq Habib, the deputy general manager of the White Helmets, told CNN that he believed the facility was a research lab connected to the Assad regime’s chemical weapons programs, although the group said it could not confirm this until more specialized testing has been done.
“The regime claimed many years ago that it had disposed all its chemical weapons, but we knew that (it) kept using them,” he told CNN, leafing through documents found at the site.
