Libya and weapons of mass destruction

In 1968, Libya under Idris became a signatory state of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and was ratified by Muammar Gaddafi in 1975. Eventually, the Libyan efforts were later exposed by Friedrich Tinner (one of its leading foreign expert) in an exchange for immunity in 2003. Earlier in July 1995, the IAEA had reported that Libya had made a "strategic decision to reinvigorate its nuclear activities, including gas centrifuge uranium enrichment," which can enrich uranium for use in nuclear reactors as well as for nuclear weapons. Gaddafi's justification for seeking nuclear weapons was his concern over the Israeli nuclear capability, and publicly expressed his desire to obtain nuclear weapons. In 1974, Gaddafi paid a state visit to Pakistan to attend the second summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Lahore and found a secret opportunity to research on the nuclear weapons in Pakistan. With the 1977 coup of the Bhutto administration by the Pakistani military, Libya was restricted and any attempts for its requests were rebuffed by the upcoming Zia administration due to President Zia himself distrusted and disliked the Libyans. With relations severed with Pakistan, Gaddafi normalized relations with India in 1978, and eventually reaching a mutual understanding for civil nuclear cooperation with India. An effort was made to gain access to the raw uranium ore in a view of enriching towards industrial-grade uranium but this approach proved difficult and failed due to lack of scientific capability. In 1980, Libya decided to acquire plutonium and secretly imported of uranium ore from Niger without notifying it to the IAEA as required by its safeguards agreement. In 1982, Libya made an unsuccessful negotiation attempt with Belgium to procure a small industrial plant for manufacturing UF4 solid compound. In 1985 and onward, Libya under Gaddafi used a smuggling network which UN weapons investigators found had connections to China. The Libyan program had employed Friedrich Tinner, a Swiss engineer who guided on most of the Libyan efforts on scaling the uranium towards military-grade using the gas centrifuges methods but was unable to produce an operating centrifuge without the outside technical experts. With the enforcement of the economic sanctions on Libya and Iran by the Clinton administration in 1996, Gaddafi sought to persuade U.S. President Bill Clinton to lift UN sanctions in exchange for giving up its WMD programs. In 1997, Libya received technical information on gas centrifuges from its smuggling network and was able to restart the project under Tinner, after it received 20 pre-assembled centrifuges and components for an additional 200 centrifuges and related parts from foreign suppliers. In October 2000, the Libyan efforts oversaw by Tinner were successful in installing a complete single centrifuge, using a pre-assembled rotors, at its Al Hashan site. However, further experiments relating to the efficiency, performance, and efficacy of the centrifuges failed as the technical guides and documents were too difficult to interpret and bring into operation. In March 1998, Russia and Libya signed a contract with the Russian consortium, the Atomenergoeksport, for a partial overhaul of the Tajoura Nuclear Research Center. Dismantlement In 1992, the rollback of the Libya's nuclear program started with the Clinton administration according to the U.S. diplomat, Martin Indyk, who maintained that the negotiations and diplomatic efforts rolling back Libyan nuclear program were started as early as Bill Clinton assuming the presidency. ==Chemical weapons program==

Tornado striking the Scud missile launcher during the military intervention in Libya in 2011. In August 1987, the Chadian government accused Libya of using chemical weapons during the Chadian–Libyan War. In 1970, Libya under Gaddafi received Scud missile launchers and obtained chemical munitions from the former Soviet Union and the East Germany with other reports claiming that the Libyans received chemical warfare training from the Soviet Union and some chemical agents from Poland in 1980, or from Iran in exchange for naval mines for their tanker war against Iraq. In response to these claims the United States shipped 2,000 gas masks to Chad. In early September 2011, OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü said reports he had received indicated that the remaining weapons were secure and had not fallen into the hands of militant groups. A stockpile of mustard gas, which the OPCW reported the regime may have attempted to hide from inspectors overseeing the chemical weapons program's dismantlement, was reportedly found in the Jufra District by anti-Gaddafi fighters less than two weeks later. In late September it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that a major ammunition complex, including chemical-weapons-capable artillery shells, was unguarded and open to looting. In December 2012 a senior Spanish intelligence official said that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb "probably also has non-conventional arms, basically chemical, as a result of the loss of control of arsenals", with Libya the most likely source. Libya's National Transitional Council cooperated with the OPCW in the destruction of the remaining chemical weapons. After assessing the chemical stockpiles, the OPCW set a deadline for the destruction of the weapons by the Libyan government. As of September 2013, 1.6 metric tons of mustard blister agent loaded in artillery rounds, 2.5 metric tons of congealed mustard agent, and 846 metric tons of chemical weapons ingredients remained to be destroyed. According to The New York Times, in February 2014, the remnants of Libya's chemical weapons had been discreetly destroyed by the United States and Libya, using a transportable oven technology to destroy hundreds of bombs and artillery rounds filled with deadly mustard agent. In September 2014, OPCW said Libya still had around 850 tonnes of industrial chemicals that could be used to produce chemical weapons. In October 2014, Libya asked for foreign assistance to transport that stockpile of raw materials for making nerve gas out of Libya for destruction. On 5 February 2015, the Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Director-General of OPCW agreed on the need to complete the destruction of the remaining precursor chemicals. On 21 February 2015, Asharq Al-Awsat reported that an anonymous Libyan army official stated extremists had seized large amounts of Gaddafi’s chemical weapons from multiple locations. The official warned that the targeted caches included mustard gas and sarin. The North Africa Post later reported that chemical weapons were stolen by armed men who stormed the chemical factory in the Jufra district where the weapons were stored. Military sources reportedly stated that among the chemical weapons are mustard gas and sarin. On 31 August 2016, the last stockpile of ingredients for chemical weapons in the country was removed to Germany to avoid it falling into the hands of militants and was slated for destruction. Destruction of Libya's chemical weapon precursors was completed in November 2017. ==Ballistic missiles==

The strategic relations with the Soviet Union allowed Libya to purchase at least 80 Scud-B missiles with transporter erector launchers, 40 FROG-7 missiles with transporter erector launchers, and several hundreds of chemical weapons deliverable missiles from the Soviet Union. In 1982, Libya sent two 9P117 trucks and around 20 Scud-B missiles to Iran for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) alongside with its instructors during the War of the cities against Iraq. In 1986, Gaddafi ordered the launch of Scud-B missiles against a United States facility on the Italian island of Lampedusa in retaliation for the United States bombing of Libya. Two missiles were fired, but fell short of their mark. The Libya under Gaddafi also worked on the development of a domestically produced range missile, the "Al-Fatah" reportedly based on a West German design (the OTRAG rocket) with foreign assistance from Iraq, Iran, Serbia, and China. but such rumors ultimately proved to be false after the disarmament of Libya in 2003. The Libyans purchased at least five Hwasong-6 (Scud-C) missiles from North Korea in 1995, receiving them in 1999. They were never tested or deployed and were ultimately scrapped (alongside their planned local production) after 2003. In exchange for the lifting of Western economic sanctions, Libya largely abandoned its domestic missiles program in 2004. Several more Scuds, with launchers, were found by anti-Gaddafi fighters near Tripoli and Sirte. The final phases of the NATO intervention reportedly destroyed the remaining Scud missiles in Libyan inventory, effectively ending the Libyan missile capability. == See also ==