At present, more than 500 tons of chemical agents marked as priority target are still posted in 12 military sites scattered   within the whole Country but the political instability due to the civil war makes the transportation phase extremely risky. Moreover, it is not clear yet whether Russian armoured trucks that have to transport the chemical material have reached all 12 locations. Further problems are related to the forthcoming deadlines: the OPCW has kept the 31 of March as the time limit by wich those 500 tons will have to be destroyed but, according to Syrian govermnet, it will take the Russian convoys at least 18 days to carry everything to the coast, and that imply they should be moving within the next 10 days and considering it a simple task would be a mistake.

Meanwhile things are moving nearby Syrian coasts. On January 4 two Danish and two Norwegian ship (two cargo ships and two coastguard vessels) left Cyprus waters from Limassol port headed to Syrian port of Latakia where they will have to wait for the Russian convoys. Once they will have loaded the cargo ships, they will put to sea protected by the Russian battle-cruiser Pyotr Veliky and the Chinese war frigate Yancheng and will head towards Italy. In a still unspecified port, the chemical material will be transferred to the US bulk carrier vessel Cape Ray in which it will be destroyed by hydrolysis in international waters, operation that will take about 60 days to be completed (maybe less since the UK offered to destroy 150 tonnes of the first consignment). But, at the moment, the Cape Ray is still doked at Norfolk port in Virginia and it will take it about 15 days to reach Italian coasts.

Everything seems to be rightly set, no piece of this "puzzle" seems to be missing; but one thing is having all the pieces, matching them perfectly toghether is a completely different matter.

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