Following the arrest of a Syrian ex-military officer on July 15, 2026, in Latakia, Colonel Ahmed Habib Ali’s questions regarding the enforcement mechanism of the International Chemical Weapons Ban came to the forefront. More than three decades after the convention came into force, why does the international community struggle to enforce one of the world’s largest prohibitions?

The former military officer was accused of manufacturing sarin gas bombs within Unit 417, which was a famous weapons site near Damascus under the presidential era of ousted president Bashar Al-Assad. The former Syrian government used chemical weapons during the civil war in 2013, followed by 2017 and 2018.

The Syrian government for Human Rights records a total of 1,514 individuals killed by the chemical weapons that the Syrian government used from 2012 to the end of the conflict. This development came to happen as the Chemical Weapons Watchdog restored Syria’s rights in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as the new leadership made progress in addressing the chemical weapons issue.

However, this was not the first time that chemicals were used as weapons; rather, the origins can be traced back to the 17th century when France and the Holy Roman Empire concluded the first international ban agreement, the Strasbourg Agreement of 1675, which prohibited the use of poisoned bullets in warfare.

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

The use of chemical weapons became prominent during the world wars and later in the Middle Eastern crisis, such as when used by Egypt on Yemen and in the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. These circumstances led to the creation of the Organization for the Prohibition of........

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