Israel will hold fire unless the convoys deviate from delivering the weapons to the Latakia port.

Via Jerusalem Post

Internationally-monitored convoys removing Syrian chemical weapons are at little risk of being seized by rebels fighting President Bashar Assad or by his Lebanese Hezbollah allies, a senior Israeli military officer said on Tuesday.

The estimate suggested that Israel, which reportedly bombed targets in Syria last year to prevent suspected transfers from Assad’s arsenal to hostile guerrillas, was holding fire as tons of toxins are trucked out – in some cases through war zones not under Assad’s control.

“We are not poised for a situation in which a convoy encounters rebels. This is something being addressed by the international forces that are there,” the officer told Reuters, referring to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is overseeing the disarmament process.

He assessed the OPCW’s role would also prevent Hezbollah, which has fighters in Syria helping Assad battle an almost three-year-old rebellion, from redirecting trucks to Lebanon.

“I reckon such a scenario is not possible,” said the officer, who declined to be named under military secrecy.

Syria agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by June under a deal worked out by Russia and the United States after an Aug. 21 sarin gas attack near Damascus that Western nations blamed on Assad forces. The government blames rebels for the attack.

Around 1,300 tons of Syrian chemical weapons are slated for decommissioning. Some are to be shipped from Latakia port for destruction on a specially converted US vessel.

Syria loaded a first batch of chemicals onto a Danish cargo vessel last Tuesday, a week after missing the original Dec. 31 target to ship out all the deadliest chemicals. The OPCW has called on Assad’s government to speed up the process. An official contacted by Reuters on Tuesday declined to say whether any further cargoes had been loaded onto ships.