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.