Last month's alleged chemical attack near Damascus has refocused attention on Syria's 30-year-old biological weapons research and raised concerns about whether its regime could activate an effort to make a weapon.
Syria's bio-weapon program, which U.S. officials believe has been largely dormant since the 1980s, is likely to possess the key ingredients for a weapon, including a collection of lethal bacteria and viruses as well as the modern equipment needed to covert them into deadly powders and aerosols, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials and weapon experts.
This latent capability has begun to worry some of Syria's neighbors, especially after allegations that the regime of President Bashar Assad used internationally banned chemical weapons against civilians in an Aug. 21 attack.