Syria: chemical clean-up the biggest ever staged

International chemical weapon troubleshooters will enter war-torn Syria on Tuesday to start one of the biggest and most dangerous disarmament operations ever staged.

With more than 1,000 tonnes of sarin, mustard gas and other banned horror chemicals stocked across the country, the UN  and the global chemical weapons watchdog have launched an urgent appeal for scarce experts to join the mission.

Applicants must be ready to face mortal risks and an impossible deadline.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon called the operation "daunting" after the UN Security Council voted Friday to eliminate President Bashar al-Assad's chemical arms.

UN needs 200 inspectors

The mission by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which polices the 1993  Chemical Weapons Convention will run in parallel to a UN investigation into a huge sarin gas attack in Damascus in August and other suspected attacks.

Final details of a US-Russia plan to dispose of stockpiles at an estimated 45 sites have still not been agreed, UN diplomats said.

Clean-ups of chemicals have been staged in Iraq and Libya, but never in the middle of a raging war.

Experts say the OPCW will need up to 200 inspectors for the Syria force. It has less than half that number who already have a heavy regular workload.

The watchdog has had to appeal to the major powers to send scientists.

Those who go will become a new target in the 30-month-old conflict and the strife means the noxious potions will have to be moved out of Syria to be destroyed.