Chemical terrorism

Chemical terrorism is the form of terrorism that uses the toxic effects of chemicals to kill, injure, or otherwise adversely affect the interests of its targets.

Incidents

Used by Hamas in Israel

According to a statement by CIA director George Tenet in 2000, Hamas has pursued a capability to conduct chemical terrorism.[1] There have been reports of Hamas operatives planning and preparing attacks incorporating chemicals. In one case, nails and bolts packed into explosives detonated by a Hamas suicide bomber in a December 2001 attack at the Ben-Yehuda street in Jerusalem were soaked in rat poison. In another case, Hamas operative Abbas al-Sayyid received a large quantity of cyanide which he intended to insert into the explosive belts worn by suicide bombers.[1]

Used by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan

On the morning of March 20, 1995, the Tokyo subway system was hit by synchronized chemical attacks on five trains.[2] Using simple lunch-box-sized dispensers to release a mixture containing the military nerve agent Sarin, members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult killed twelve people and injured about a thousand others. The incident was unusual because the cult was using nerve gas that it had made in its own facilities; however, using unsophisticated means to disperse this low-quality agent, the attackers produced results less impressive than those achieved with ordinary explosives in the attacks on the Madrid and London transport systems in 2004 and 2005.

References

This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "chemical terrorism", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hamas's Tactics: Lessons from Recent Attacks, By Jamie Chosak and Julie Sawyer. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. October 19, 2005
  2. ↑ CDC website, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future Threat?, Kyle B. Olson, Research Planning, Inc., Arlington, Virginia