Syria Civil War: 75,000 Troops Needed to Safely Dispose of Syria's Chemical Weapons Stockpile

It requires as many as 75,000 troops to safely dispose of the stockpile of chemical weapons in Syria, estimates a think tank.

According to the 44-page report titled Syria Crisis Briefing, A Collision Course for Intervention released by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security (RUSI), the chemical weapons stockpile in Syria is frighteningly huge and dispersed.

The Syrian regime controlled by President Bashar al-Assad has potentially five chemical agents manufacturing plants and several dozen additional storage sites some of which are in hardened bunkers, says the report.

The chemical weapons arsenal of Syria has been feared as the largest stockpile in the Middle East.

The weapons pose a significant threat to the region if Assad is removed, despite the regime's promise that it will not use the weapons for internal developments.

The report alleges that Syria is pursuing biological weapons also. The experts predict that western nations would intervene in Syria which is experiencing a prolonged uprising against the regime.

Michael Codner, a senior research fellow and director of military sciences at RUSI, suggests that the West could be called upon to deploy nearly 300,000 troops if the regime collapses.

Irrespective of Assad's future in Syria, armed external intervention in the country is more likely, indicates the report.

"Whether or not Assad falls, the question of military intervention will remain a live issue. External intervention has been under way in Syria for months, with Russia arming the regime. At the same time Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with US and Turkish facilitation, have been arming and funding the opposition; and this covert support has been substantially responsible for the progress opposition forces have made in recent weeks.

Western political leaders may have no appetite for deeper intervention. But as history has shown, we do not always choose which wars to fight - sometimes wars choose us," writes a contributor in the report, Colonel Richard Kemp.

Experts opine that the latest battles between the rebels and Assad's forces in Damascus and Aleppo have been pivotal in the Syrian uprising and are expected to seal the fate of the country.

In the last few days, Assad's inner circle has been decimated while other reports say his family may have fled the country.