SYRIA thread

[Elmetiacos]

You are again assuming everyone has unlimited access to technical expertise and means of production. Long term storage isn't much of an importance if you're in an actual conflict. Iraqis made low grade unitary sarin during the gulf war that had a shelf life of only few weeks. They didn't care because they were gonna use it within those few weeks.

There are two advantages binary sarin has over unitary. It safer to handle and it safer to store for very long periods of time. Neither of them are important to terrorists.

For them, the ease of deployment is more important. Why would they care about long term storage? They don't have the logistic base to produce, move and store large amount of sarin. They create small amounts in field workshops that will used shortly after production, in the simplest way possible - break the container. It is quite illogical to think they would go to trouble to create special shells that will fire precursors with a complicated mechanism that would ensure that precursors match at the right time.

People in Syria who know how to make and deploy nerve agents are going to be used to doing it this way. If they have munitions designed for a chemical attack, they will be the sort that mix binary agents. It would be easier to use pre-existing stock or to have any arms plants you have seized to continue to manufacture according to the processes they already use. Maybe Tahrir as-Sham are using trebuchets to fling soft drink bottles full of Sarin at government forces, but somehow I doubt it. I'm getting bored with this now.