Syria disarmament team launches mission

 International disarmament experts arrived Tuesday in the Syrian capital to begin the daunting task of cataloguing the country's arsenal of chemical weapons ahead of its destruction.

Nineteen inspectors from The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons travelled by road from Lebanon a day after UN experts left Damascus after probing alleged gas attacks.

Syria's information minister meanwhile insisted that President Bashar al-Assad would stay in office and that he had the option to run for another term in elections next year.

Assad's departure is a key demand of the opposition, who insist it must be a pillar of a mooted peace conference in Geneva.

And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group released a new toll in the conflict, saying more than 115,000 people had been killed since March 2011.

The OPCW inspectors are in Syria to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2118 ordering the elimination of the chemical arsenal by mid-2014.

The UN said they were accompanied by 14 staffers and would begin in the coming days to verify data provided by Assad's regime and plan how the weapons will be destroyed.

The task is huge as the arsenal is believed to include more than 1,000 tonnes of sarin, mustard gas and other banned chemicals stored at an estimated 45 sites across the war-torn country.

The OPCW said the inspectors -- all volunteers -- would meet Syrian government officials late Tuesday before setting off to work.

The mission is the first in OPCW history to take place in a country embroiled by civil war, and the inspectors are to check a list of sites provided by the Damascus regime and conduct on the spot testing.

The UN team that left Damascus on Monday probed seven alleged gas attacks and hopes to present a final report by late October, after an initial one in September confirmed sarin gas was used in August 21 attacks on the outskirts of Damascus.

The United States threatened military action in response, accusing Assad's forces of deliberately killing hundreds of civilians with rocket-delivered nerve agents.

Syria denied this but agreed to relinquish its chemical arsenal, effectively heading off a strike, under a US-Russian deal enshrined in the UN resolution.

The OPCW has said it has no reason to doubt information provided by Syria on its chemical weapons and Assad has said he will comply with the terms of the resolution.