Disarmament experts from the international chemical weapons watchdog have begun destroying Syria's arsenal, a monitoring official has said.
The operation is being carried out by a team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The mission was established under a UN resolution passed after agreement between Russia and the US.
The resolution followed international outrage at a chemical weapons attack near Damascus in August.
So far so good. Syria has joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has made its declarations about what it has in the way of munitions and infrastructure.
Now on to destruction.
The first target is to eliminate equipment for producing chemical agents and for filling munitions.
These two categories of equipment must be destroyed by November.
While chemical processes will ultimately be used to neutralise Syria's large stocks of precursor chemicals - the building blocks for militarised chemical agents - brute force may be all that is required for this first stage.
Key components of production facilities can be smashed or otherwise put out of action. So, too, can filling sites for munitions.
The empty bomb or shells can simply be run over with a heavy vehicle. But this is all still uncharted territory - an unprecedented and accelerated programme to rid a country of its chemical weapons arsenal in the midst of a hot civil war.
No wonder then that many experts remain sceptical. The real test of the Syrian authorities' willingness to implement this agreement is only just beginning.
In an interim report, UN chemical weapons inspectors confirmed that the nerve agent sarin had been used in the attack on the outskirts of the city.
It was estimated to have killed hundreds of people, was blamed by the United States and other Western powers on the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But he accuses Syrian rebels of being behind it.
"Today is the first day of destruction, in which heavy vehicles are going to run over and thus destroy missile warheads, aerial chemical bombs and mobile and static mixing and filling units," a source told the French AFP news agency.
It is not clear at which of the 19 chemical weapons sites declared by the government Sunday's operation is taking place.
Destruction of the stockpile is not expected to be straightforward as some sites are in combat zones as Syria is still ravaged by civil war.
It is the first time the OPCW has been asked to destroy a chemical weapons armoury during a conflict.
The Syrian government gave details of its chemical weapons arsenal last month to the OPCW under the Russia-US agreement which also provided for Damascus to join the Chemical Weapons Convention.
That arsenal is thought to include more than 1,000 tonnes of sarin and the blister agent sulphur mustard among other banned chemicals.
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