Syria has destroyed all of its chemical weapons production and mixing facilities, in a move that means it has met an important deadline in its chemical disarmament deal, the international chemical weapons watchdog said Thursday. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month for its work disarming the Syrian regime, said it had inspected 21 of 23 chemical weapons sites — the other two being too dangerous to visit — and that Syria had "completed the functional destruction of critical equipment" at them, "rendering them inoperable." Syria had been required to have done so by Nov. 1, and now, it must agree along with the watchdog group to a detailed destruction plan by Nov. 15. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, two and a half years into a bloody civil war with rebels, has agreed to destroy all its chemical weapons. That commitment was made under a brokered U.N. deal struck after Washington threatened to launch military strikes on Assad, following an apparent sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians outside Damascus.
