Date : 08 Ekim  2013 Salı - 10:19, Category : WORLD

In a report to the UN Security Council seen by AFP, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon set out a blueprint for the most dangerous disarmament operation ever staged, even as the United States and Russia praised steps taken so far by President Bashar al-Assad's government.
But a major rebel assault in northwest Syria highlighted the looming threats to inspectors from the joint United Nations and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mission.
The two international bodies have had to speedily gather a team after a Security Council resolution endorsed a Russian-US disarmament plan on September 27.
The plan was launched after a chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21, in which hundreds -- Washington claims around 1,400 -- people died.
US President Barack Obama initially threatened a punitive military strike but when he struggled to win international or even domestic support for such a move agreed to a Russian disarmament plan.
Russia and the United States have the ambitiously aim to seize and destroy Syria's huge chemical weapons arsenal, estimated at 1,000 tonnes, by mid-2014.
Some 19 OPCW arms experts and 16 UN logistics and security personnel are in Syria and hav started to destroy weapons production facilities.
Ban recommended the team be increased to about 100 scientists, logistics and security experts who will stay for up to a year.