On October 6, a team of weapons experts began overseeing the long process of destroying Syria’s 1,000-ton arsenal of chemical weapons.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is managing the operation, stated in a press release that “Syrian personnel used cutting torches and angle grinders to destroy or disable a range of items. This included missile warheads, aerial bombs and mixing and filling equipment.”

OPCW and the United Nations will send one hundred specialists to Syria over the coming months to aid in the procedure. The 35-member advance team currently in place in Syria arrived in Damascus on October 1.

According to the New York Times article “100 Specialists to Carry Out Tricky Syria Disarmament,”  United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has said the U.N. will “establish a joint mission” with OPCW to be based in Damascus with additional staging grounds on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

These efforts come after the United Nations’ unanimous adoption of Resolution 2118 (2013), which calls for a scheduled destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, on September 27.

The text of the resolution orders Syria to “complete the elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment in the first half of 2014.”