Syria met the Nov. 1 deadline to destroy all of the equipment used to produce chemical weapons and poison gas munitions on Thursday the Associated Press reported.
The move should curtail rising tensions between oppositions in the north near one of the chemical weapon facilities were toxic chemicals are stored.
According to a statement released Thursday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons "is now satisfied that it has verified, and seen destroyed, all of Syria's declared production and mixing/filing equipment."
The watchdog's announcement came one day before the agreed Nov. 1 deadline set by the Hague-based organization for Damascus to destroy or "render inoperable" all chemical weapon production facilities and machinery used to make them, the AP reported.
As the announcement was being released, fighting raged in the town of Safira, where a chemical weapons production facility and storage site are located, and where President Bashar Assad's troops have been fighting rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaida groups for weeks, according to the AP.
The agreement to destroy all the equipment will not allow Syria to produce any new chemical weapons, but the destruction of all existing weapons, including the 1,000 metric tons of chemicals and weapons like mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin, still need to be destroyed.
The OPCW has inspected 21 of the 23 sites declared by Syria to contain chemical weapons and machinery to produce them, and 39 of 41 facilities located in those sites, according to the statement released by OPCW. The two remaining sites were not visited due to security concerns and because Syria said they were abandoned and the chemical weapon items left there were moved to other declared facilities that have been inspected.
It was not immediately clear if the facility in Safira was one of the two sites OPCW inspectors were not able to visit due to safety concerns, the AP reported.
The civil war in Syria was just one of the dangers the OPWC inspectors had to encounter while they scrambled to meet the deadline and inspect and destroy all chemical weapon machinery and storage facilities, the AP reported.
The next milestone for the United Nations watchdog mission is a Nov. 15 where the Executive Council must submit a detailed plan of how to destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, according to the statement released by OPWC.
According to the AP, Syria's conflict has killed more than 100,000 people and forced some 2 million more to flee the country. Now in its third year, the civil war pits the primarily Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government and its security forces, which are stacked with members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
