Serbia's Chemical Weapons Stock Detailed
Zagreb Globus 16 Apr 99 pp 18-19
by Igor Alborghetti: "Yugoslav Army Has 40 Metric Tons of
the Poisonous Gasses Sarin and Mustard Gas Hidden in the
Underground Storage Facility of the Chemical Plant in Lucani!"
[FBIS Translated Text] Sources in the Pentagon confirmed several days ago
that the Army of Yugoslavia possesses at least two kinds of poisonous
gasses, as well as facilities to produce them, inherited from the former
SFRY [Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia]!
At the same time, the United States Department of Defense seriously
warned Slobodan Milosevic and the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army: if
Belgrade uses poisonous gasses sarin and mustard gas against NATO, the
response of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be devastating!
The American national TV network NBC reported this at prime time on 9
April 1999.
Since the beginning of air strikes against the FRY, NATO has not said a
single word to indicate that it was attacking Serbian capacity to produce
poisonous gasses. A list of such important targets was not especially set
aside. That list was simply added to all other targets systematically
destroyed by NATO: communications centers, fuel and ammunition depots,
airports, traffic communications...
Nevertheless, NATO strategists in Brussels said that NATO aircraft had
attacked
Lucani on several occasions late last week. But they did not say that the
center of the Serbian specific-purpose chemical industry was situated in
that place, 200 kilometers south of Belgrade. Best known is the "Milan
Blagojevic" factory for nitrocellulose gunpowder. However, within the
factory area, there is a secret, camouflaged facility for the production
of poisonous gasses. In fact, that was NATO's main target!
The chemical weapons factory in Lucani was built by the JNA [Yugoslav
Peoples Army] at the time when the SFRY was intensively developing
chemical weapons production. The whole project was a carefully hidden
secret, so there are no photographs of that factory. Some witnesses, who
had visited that secret facility as experts working for the former JNA,
told Globus that the building that houses the facility looks like an
ordinary three-story office building.
Yet, within that building, there are huge glass reactors, about 30 meters
tall, and a multitude of heating and cooling tubes.
The whole equipment for the synthesis of poisonous gasses was,
allegedly, legally bought in Germany, because the customs declaration
said it was the equipment used in the pharmaceutical industry. Most of
the 300 employees were in active military service, working at the
Military Medical Academy and Military Technical Institute in Belgrade.
The factory, our source points out, was not in use all the time. It was
used in different periods and only when there was a need to produce
chemical weapons. However, it is important to point out that, having
built that production facility, the SFRY put herself among the countries
capable of producing chemical weapons on a large scale, and that
Milosevic's Yugoslavia maintained the same technological level.
Cooperation With Iraq [subhead]
Chemists from Iraq often spent time in Lucani, just as often as former JNA
experts traveled to that Arab country. Cooperation in the production of
chemical weapons was particularly intensive in the early 1980s, which is
something the Western intelligence services did not fail to notice.
However, the SFRY had silent support for such a form of cooperation,
because of the war between Iraq and Iran. That is, Western Allies thought
that the conflict was welcome, because they believed that Saddam Husayn
and Iraq would stop the spread of the Iranian revolution to other Arab
countries.
The joint Iraqi-Yugoslav project of producing a 262-mm multiple rocket
launcher Orkan, under the code name kol 15 was seen in the same light.
In fact, the whole project of producing Iraqi chemical weapons was
organized on the former Yugoslav model. The countries of Western Europe
and the United States have had a hard time destroying the major part of
Iraqi capacities, but it is presumed that a certain quantity of poisonous
gasses, produced in cooperation with Yugoslavia, is still hidden
somewhere.
Globus's source says that it is almost impossible to find out what quantity
of poisonous gasses has been hidden by the Yugoslav Army. An approximate
appraisal was made as early as in 1993, when the Republic of Croatia sent
a special document on Yugoslav capacities for chemical weapons production
in the FRY to the OSCE.
Apart from that, in the former SFRY, chemical weapons production has been
the best kept secret of both the military and the political top brass
since 1958, when production began.
Let us say that SIPRI [Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute], which has the most accurate data on the military potentials
of any country, has never mentioned in its annual reports that Yugoslavia
had been developing a chemical weapons program.
The first military facility in SFRY that had to do with poisonous gasses
was built in the village of Potoci, 10 kilometers to the north of Mostar.
On 52 hectares of land, the Military Technical Institute from Belgrade
built a poisonous gasses production facility, laboratories for analysis
and synthesis, underground and surface storage facilities, a breeding
center for test animals, and a medical clinic. However, that facility did
not produce large quantities of gasses, so it was mainly used as the
former army's center for research into the effects caused by chemical
weapons.
Formally, the poisonous gasses factory near Mostar was part of the Institute
for Technical and Medical Protection in Belgrade. A hundred workers, and
some 20 chemical engineers and technicians were employed there. Only 5
percent of that number were persons in active military service. More than
half of them were Serbs.
The "Jastrebac" Project [subhead]
In January and February 1992, after 34 years of producing poisonous
gasses, the machinery and apparatuses were disassembled and transported
to Lucani, where they were put together once again. Several months
before, the same happened with technical documentation, records, and the
archive. By the decree issued by the JNA General Staff, the factory was
officially closed down late in February 1992.
The first completely finished project of chemical weapons production in
the former Yugoslavia was the nerve gas sarin. The program was officially
called HM-502. After the initial research in Mostar, production started
at "Prva Iskra" factory in Baric, in Serbia. The first, experimental
phase, was successfully completed: a total of 143 kilograms of sarin was
produced.
The second project, with a similar name, but with a different number,
HM-501, was theproduction of mustard gas. Thirty kilograms were produced.
Howitzer and artillery shells of 152 and 155mm have been filled with both
types of poisonous gasses. Between 1961 and 1969, those shells were used
in a whole series of tests on ground contamination and the construction
of artillery shells. Those tests were carried out in the mountains of
Velez and Cvrsnica in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Improved technological solutions in the "Prva Iskra" factory made it possible
to increase the production of mustard gas and sarin to 200 kilograms a
day.
Until the beginning of 1980, apart from sarin and mustard gas, the SFRY
also produced some other types of asphyxiating agents, which were part of
the standard equipment of almost all units of the former army [JNA].
On the other hand, the stocks of mustard gas and sarin were kept as a
strategic reserve, and only some of the special units of the then Guard
Division from Belgrade had them at their disposal.
In February 1984 a significant technological breakthrough was made:
along with the already smooth-running production of mustard gas and
sarin, the production of BZ nerve gas started, too. In the laboratories,
it was also possible to produce small quantities of some other types of
poisonous gasses, for instance, soman, VX, tabun...
Atomic Bomb of the Poor [subhead]
Mustard gas is a blister gas. Without protection, the people exposed to that
gas die because of its absorption through the skin and lungs. Sarin,
after soman, is the most lethal nerve gas: it kills within 30 seconds.
The "Jastrebac" Project had been developed between 1976 and 1988, and it
was the most ambitious attempt to put sarin and mustard gas to use. The
JNA tried to fill artillery and howitzer shells, missiles, air bombs and
land mines with mustard gas and sarin. For that purpose, 4.5 metric tons
of sarin were produced, and special filling and checking equipment were
assembled in Mostar. The tests were carried out in the Krivolak mountain
in Macedonia, and in the nearby military training ground. When howitzer
and artillery shells were fired, several dangerous incidents occurred,
and the ground and wild animals were contaminated without check.
Even though there were substantial problems in the development of such a
poisonous gas, after the completion of the "Jastrebac" project in 1988,
the JNA introduced a 122-mm howitzer shell filled with sarin and mustard
gas, a 128-mm missile filled with sarin, and an air bomb BAD 100 filled
with sarin into operational use.
Some of those devices had been stored in Hadzici near Sarajevo until the
beginning of the war. Early in 1992, all the ammunition, together with
poisonous gasses, was secretly transported to Serbia. According to
intelligence estimates, Slobodan Milosevic and the Yugoslav Army have at
least 4,800 howitzer shells filled with sarin and 1,000 of them filled
with mustard gas.
Each of those shells contains 1.8 liters of dangerous poisonous gas!
So, a simple mathematical calculation says that the FRY has more than 8
metric tons of sarin and almost 2 metric tons of mustard gas! This
quantity of poisonous gasses does not include other chemicals, which were
withdrawn from Mostar to Serbia eight years ago, and which are used for
the production of more gasses. According to the information from
distinguished experts in chemical warfare, Serbia used those raw
materials and produced at least another 30 metric tons of sarin by 1999.
So, the total estimate indicates that Milosevic and his generals have a
total of 40 metric tons of different kinds of lethal poisonous gasses!
If Milosevic intends to use chemical weapons against NATO, he will
certainly not do so before foreign troops arrive in Kosovo. Not even the
NATO strategists can work out the probability of Milosevic launching a
chemical attack on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Washington and
Brussels are seriously concerned because Milosevic and the Yugoslav Army
possess such a weapon -- "the atomic bomb of the poor countries."
An additional cause for concern is the news coming from Serbia that all
the poisonous gasses production capacities had been transferred and
hidden in secure and secret locations a long time before NATO strikes
began. That is why theWestern Allies' air strikes on Lucani and
Belgrade's "Galenika" [pharmaceutical industry] did not destroy the
Serbian dictator's chemical weapons industry.
Chemical Weaponry of the Yugoslav Army [subhead]
TYPE FILLING QUANTITY
122mm howitzer shell sarin 1.8 liter 4,800 shells
122mm howitzer shell mustard gas 1.8liter 1,000 shells
128mm rocket missile sarin 2 liters unknown
BAD 100 air bomb sarin 20 liters unknown
[Map] Facilities for Production, Testing, and Storage of Chemical Weapons
in Former SFRY [subhead]BELGRADE (between 1992 and 1999)
"Galenika"- testing of poisonous gas samples- cooperation with Iraqi
scientists,
experts in poisonous gassesBARIC, near Belgrade (since 1966)
"Prva Iskra"- production of mustard gas and sarinLUCANI, near Cacak (since
1989)
"Milan Blagojevic"- production of mustard gas and sarin- stocks of 30
metric tons of sarin and 5,800 shells filled with mustard gas and
sarinKRUSEVAC
"Miloje Zakic"- production of asphyxiating agentsPOTOCI, near Mostar,
Bosnia-Herzegovina (between 1958 and 1992)
Military Technical Institute of Mostar- pilot production of mustard gas and
sarin- filling shells and missilesKRIVOLAK, Macedonia (until 1992)
Military Training Ground Krivolak- poisonous gasses testing- shells and
rocket missiles filling facility.
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