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ABC: Is Al Qaeda Chemical Attack Next?
Homemade Chemical Bomb Could Be Al Qaeda's Greatest ThreatThe plot thickens. I thought their current propagandic position was that the historical existance of chemical weapons was a propaganda ploy of the machiavellian chimphitler's... A U.S. government surveillance tape obtained by ABC News shows suspected al Qaeda operatives delivering a chemical bomb to the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, this past March. The attempted bombing — which was thwarted by an alert security guard — would have been the terror network's first chemical bomb attack. The videotape shows an unidentified man leaving a white van outside the consulate and being picked up by accomplices. Inside the van was a large blue vat containing a 200-gallon mixture of easily available chemicals meant to produce a powerful explosion and potentially fatal fumes. Many experts now regard this to be al Qaeda's greatest threat — the homemade chemical bomb. "This is no longer theory," said Richard Clarke, who served as a top counterterrorism official under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "This is something al Qaeda always wanted to do. They wrote about it in their encyclopedia of jihad, they experimented with it in Afghanistan, and now in the last year we see evidence that the new al Qaeda is about the process of collecting these chemicals around the world." The videotape, obtained by ABC News exclusively, shows a fast, coordinated effort. After leaving the van parked outside the consulate, the driver is quickly picked up by accomplices in a car. But a consulate security guard approached the van and discovered its contents. Jordan Attack Disrupted In early April, authorities in Jordan disrupted what would have been an even bigger chemical attack. Officials said that terrorists linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi managed to smuggle three cars — packed with explosives, a chemical bomb and poisonous gas — into the capital city, Amman. Authorities in Jordan estimate that 80,000 people would have been killed if the chemical bomb had gone off at its intended targets — the Jordanian intelligence headquarters, the U.S. Embassy in Amman and the Jordanian prime minister's office. It's INTERESTING how they report this incident in the midst of a discussion of homemade chemical weapons... they want to imply that they're sure this attack was done by homemade chemical weapons of some sort, and has no connection whatsoever to anything that might have been built in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This begs the question, though... if it's so easy to come up with an attack of this nature by themselves, how come there haven't been any repeats, either here or in Iraq? And isn't it funny that these "homemade" chemical weapons were homemade in Syria, according to the initial reports. ...The captured leader of the plot, Jordanian Azmi al-Jayussi, told authorities that a Russian scientist had provided the chemical recipe. But can we be sure he's telling the truth? And as seen on a tape obtained by ABC News, when Jordanian authorities conducted a test explosion using the same combination of chemicals, with smaller portions, it produced a toxic plume that killed rabbits placed 200 yards away. "The kind of weapon that al Qaeda procured in Jordan anyone can buy in the United States commercially," said Clark. "Anyone in the United States, if they knew the right formula, could make this kind of chemical bomb that would kill thousands." Dare I ask, how many of these details are real, and how many made up? I know only the night-owl crowd's going to read this post before it ages off the front page... but I'd like whoever's still around to comment on this. It's bugging me, like the dog that didn't bark.
Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=55962 |