TRIPOLI: Libya has shipped the last of its chemical weapons stocks out of the country, officials said Tuesday, under a U.N.-backed plan to ensure the arsenal could not fall into the wrong hands. The move will ease fears that extremists like Daesh (ISIS) could gain access to the weapons in Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi.

A senior security official told AFP the stocks, including 23 tanks of chemicals, were shipped out on a Danish vessel Saturday from the port of Misrata, under the supervision of the United Nations, and were destined for Germany.

The stocks had been stored in the central Jafa area, about 200 kilometers south of Sirte where Libyan pro-government forces are battling Daesh militants, he said.

“We as Libyans did not want these weapons, especially during the current security situation and with the presence of [Daesh] in the region,” the security official said.

The deputy prime minister of Libya’s Government of National Accord, Mussa al-Koni, confirmed the operation. “All of Libya’s chemical arsenal has been shipped out of the country,” he said. “This is good news for Libya, and for the peace of Libya, and we thank all the countries that participated and the U.N.”

The Danish government had earlier this month offered to send a container vessel, support ship and 200 staff to handle the operation, coordinated by the U.N.-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

In an emailed statement to AFP, the OPCW said: “We are not in a position to disclose operational details of an ongoing effort.”

It specified, however, that the stocks in question “are industrial chemicals in wide use as well as precursor chemicals that are several stages away from being actual chemical weapons.”

A German Defense Ministry spokesman said the shipment would arrive in Germany “in the coming weeks” and contained “about 500 tons of toxic chemical products” that would be destroyed by GEKA, Germany’s state-owned company for disposing of chemical weapons.

“These chemical products can be used to produce toxic gases or warfare agents, but are not toxic gases or warfare agents,” the spokesman said.

A Danish Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government “can neither confirm nor deny” reports of its involvement.

The U.N. Security Council on July 22 endorsed plans to remove Libya’s remaining chemical weapons from the country and prevent them from falling into the hands of extremists like Daesh.

Libya joined the U.N. convention on eliminating chemical weapons in 2004 as part of Gadhafi’s ultimately abortive efforts to shake off the country’s pariah status and mend relations with the West.

The convention uses a broad definition of “chemical weapons” to include not only those already prepared for delivery but also toxic chemicals intended for use in weapons and the precursors used to create them.

At the time Libya joined the convention, it declared 24.7 tons of sulfur mustard, 1,390 tons of precursor chemicals and more than 3,500 aerial bombs containing chemical weapons. It had eliminated all the aerial bombs, 51 percent of the sulfur mustard and 40 percent of the precursor chemicals by 2011, when operations to destroy the arsenal were interrupted by the uprising against Gadhafi, according to the OPCW.

Of three chemical weapons production facilities also declared in 2004, two were destroyed and one converted for civilian use, it said.

Fears over the remaining stockpiles grew with the rise of the Libyan branch of Daesh.

Forces loyal to the internationally backed GNA, a unity government that was declared earlier this year but has struggled to assert its authority, have made significant gains against Daesh in Sirte.

After capturing most of the city including Daesh’s central headquarters earlier this month, loyalist forces have cornered the extremists in one last district.