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| Terror Networks & Islam | |
| ABC: Is Al Qaeda Chemical Attack Next? | |
| 2005-02-09 | |
| Homemade Chemical Bomb Could Be Al Qaeda's Greatest Threat The 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.
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| Posted by:Phil Fraering |
| #37 The "In the Pipeline" blog has a very good 5 part overview of chemical warfare by an industrial chemist. Very relevant to this thread. http://corante.com/pipeline/archives/cat_chembio_warfare.php Hope this works. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2005-02-09 9:05:14 PM |
| #36 And to clarify my previous point. Mixing small amounts of 4 or 5 chemical agents together is a very risky thing to do unless you are damm sure you know what is going to happen. Mixing together anything like 70 is ludicrous. That part of the report is complete BS, which makes me think its just a cover story dreamt up by someone who doesn't have a good grasp of chemistry. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-09 8:14:22 PM |
| #35 There is a fair amount of talk that it was VX or similar - Link. Its clear 20 tonnes of something was trucked across the Syrian border. Thats a big risk and requires significant effort and logistics. Why bother if this was stuff you can buy in a hardware store? It had to be something that was available in Syria but not in Jordan. My list has only one item on it - chemical weapons. Saddam's rather than Syria's own because the argument that Saddam shipped his WMD to Syria to hide them really misses the point. They were shipped to Syria for future use. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-09 8:07:06 PM |
| #34 We're talking about the attack in Jordan in April. Article excerpts and url's are given above. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 7:55:09 PM |
| #33 I still lean towards some of Saddam's WMD being used What?!?! Where? phil_b, what major bit of recent history did I miss? You cannot just put a statement like this out there without giving a few more details, my poor widdle heart just can't take it! *slow, calming breath* Look, just explain what you meant, pretty please. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-09 7:45:43 PM |
| #32 When I first read the reports about the Jordan attack, my reaction was 'only a complete and utter moron would mix together 70 different chemical agents.' Anyone that stupid would be dead already. I still lean towards some of Saddam's WMD being used and the Jordanians don't want to admit it. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-09 5:10:23 PM |
| #31 Yes, you are. Lolol. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-02-09 2:52:22 PM |
| #30 Then I'm safe in Pennsylvania |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-09 2:32:38 PM |
| #29 Mrs. Davis it's in East Tennessee. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-02-09 2:22:30 PM |
| #28 Chemical weapons are really hard to use. Just because you have enough to kill 80,000 people doesn't mean you will. If you could put the lethal dose in ampules and break them under the noses of 80K people simultaneously, then you'd have 80 K dead people. Otherwise, some very chaotic conditions take over and and reduce the effectiveness accordingly: The best condition for a chemical attack is with an inversion layer (anyone who's lived in LA knows what one of those looks like) with low winds. The worst condition is a lapse temperature gradient. I doubt many jihadis know the difference. Another issue is persistency. Some light gasses like hydrogen cyanide disperse almost immediately and are little more than nuisance agents against well trained troops (as opposed to unprotected civilians). Some nerve agents are sticky (basically insecticide for mammals) and will persist for several days in cool, cloudy weather. Mustard can also be persistent in some situations. Another issue is distribution. Ideally, like insecticide, you want to spray it over the target (Ronald Reagan actually tear gassed protesters in Berkely in this manner when he was govenor -- sprayed them from helicopters, heh). Failing having a sprayer, the best option would be cluster munitions that spread small amounts fairly evenly across the target. The worst option would be to use three or four big bombs that would produce highly lethal but geographically small concentrations that would be quickly diluted by wind and other factors. The final major factor is the size of the bursting charge. The guys who set off the WTC bomb in '93 put hydrogen cyanide in it. The heat and pressure of the explosion rendered it _all_ harmless. To get adequate dispersal at ground level from three or four big bombs requires a lot of explosive -- possibly so much that you will destroy the chemical agent. Remember, these are all either highly reactive chemicals or are organophosphates and are very supceptible to heat and pressure. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2005-02-09 1:24:37 PM |
| #27 More to the point, look at Iraq. These guys have Saddam's ill-gotten billions to play with, and a bottomless well of technical expertise. They're also pretty proficient with all kinds of ordnance, improvised mines and truck bombs. I haven't heard of a single chemical weapon being used there. If chemical weapons were so effective, wouldn't they have already been used in Iraq on the Shiites and the Kurds? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-02-09 12:36:07 PM |
| #26 A successful chemical attack (more than just a few deaths) is a lot harder than mixing a few chemicals and putting them in a bomb. The agent has to be dispersed properly over a wide area, which is always the hardest thing to do. Even the Aum Shin Rikyo didn't really succede, even with very advanced technical knowledge. |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2005-02-09 12:23:45 PM |
| #25 Where is that chemical plant located? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-09 12:20:32 PM |
| #24 Phil, don't tell anyone where I work I made this error. Chlorine gas it is. I don't know why I was thinking mustard. Mustard gas is a lot more difficult to make but not impossible. I work in a chemical plant. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-02-09 12:17:33 PM |
| #23 "Hello? Is this Ahwad's Wholesalers? Yes, I'd like to buy your most recent shipment of Clorox.....yes, all of it." |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-02-09 11:59:45 AM |
| #22 It was an American general who said that anything you can hit with chem weapons, you can hit harder with the same weight of explosives. Which is easier to make? Explosives. Hands down. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-02-09 11:57:34 AM |
| #21 The thing is, the reactions you describe are very fast acting. That's why they are so risky to your common or garden-variety housewife ;-) But that also means that the chemicals could not be pre-mixed before transport, but would have to be transported in separate containers, then mixed on site. Not at all what was described. In fact, given the description, ...the chemicals consisted of "70 chemical agents, some of which were pesticides, which mixed together could have produced a formidable chemical weapon... this is not a homemade weapon using common household cleaners made by amateurs. Remember the outrageous amount of pesticides found stored in bunkers after the invasion? This is the kind of mixture Chemical Ali had sprayed on the Kurds way back when. Remember the suspicious persons seeking to rent crop sprayer airplanes around 9/11? It sounds like being used in a bomb would indeed be a less than optimal method -- likely attempted because of the difficulty in obtaining a crop sprayer airplane in the region. Of course, I'm no chemist -- for which we all are truly thankful. But I will ask my father, who is not only a biochemist, but specialized in pesticides in his younger days. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-09 11:52:24 AM |
| #20 I always come back to two thoughts in these discussions If it were that easy to do, they'd be doing it. If it were that effective, it would have been used more often by states. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-09 11:40:12 AM |
| #19 No, Deacon, mustard gas is more complicated than that... it's chlorine gas you can make with bleach plus ammonia cleaner. I think they're relying on everyone's inaccurate knowledge of basic chemical weapons, combined with just enough of the truth to make it sound credible, to pull a fast one. And they're relying on the fact that we're not really willing to discuss the details. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 11:09:17 AM |
| #18 Chlorine bleach plus ammonia cleaner can make mustard gas. Brake fluid can be used to make several nasty things. Take a plastic drink bottle, fill it with water, add draino and aluminium foil (it creates hydrogen) and you have a bomb powerful enough to blow a hand off. These are small things. It takes a greater volume and more expertise to be able to build a chemical bomb capable of killing thousands. It's not impossible, but not easy. The determining factor is can enough raw materials be gatherd to do it. 5 tons of chlorine is quite a lot and the raw materials to make it is even more. I've probably gone in to too much detail already so I'll shut up. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-02-09 10:41:35 AM |
| #17 Yes, I know about bleach and ammonia. The big question then becomes: could four five-ton "chlorine bombs" detonated at ground level in an open environment (with wind, etc.) kill 80,000 people? It sounds like they're trying to describe a material as easy to make as chlorine but with the mortality rate of nerve agent. I'm not an expert in chemical warfare. I plan to check with some today about this... but the details they do give aren't adding up, and they're not giving many details to begin with. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 10:12:11 AM |
| #16 "Just a few common household products. In the proper proportions." --Tremors |
| Posted by: jackal 2005-02-09 9:09:39 AM |
| #15 The average journalist would think 80,000 times the lethal dose is enough to kill 80,000 people, ignoring questions of spreading, exposure variations, etc. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-02-09 9:07:26 AM |
| #14 Yes, my little brother made clorine gas about 1965. But these two events described took place in March and April, 2004 half a world away, and they are just now coming to light? And ABC wants us to lie awake nights worring about it, after nine months of inactivity? Maybe W deserves the CREDIT for no (chemical) attacks since then? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-02-09 8:55:58 AM |
| #13 Don't have to be a scientist to make posion gas:Chlorine bleach+amonia |
| Posted by: Raptor 2005-02-09 8:43:47 AM |
| #12 There are a lot of things you can buy at Wal-Mart thet can be mixed to make things go BOOM or to just give off toxic fumes. The problem I see is getting large quantities and keeping them stable long enough. Some of these things go BOOM as soon as they are mixed so would have to have some mechanical device to mix them whith no one being around. As far s the toxic fumes go, same scenario. Unless there was a suicider willing to do the mixing. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-02-09 7:32:59 AM |
| #11 scary story except for the reappearance of anti terrorist drama queen richard clarke--if he's the go to guy on the import of this stuff i want a pre apology now |
| Posted by: SON OF TOLUI 2005-02-09 2:50:51 AM |
| #10 Did anyone else notice who the expert here was? "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 the same Richard Clarke that Tommy Franks described as one of the most pompous, and useless, bureaucrats he'd ever worked with...not only that, Franks said Clarke NEVER supplied him with any actionable intelligence...though Clarke loved to play the great big expert...and Tommy always had to go over to to see Clarke at Clarke's White House office...just so Franks knew how important he was... And then of course, there was the infamous Clarke book tour and 911 testimony last year...this guy is BS. I'm not saying that the STORY her is worthless, no. I'm saying Clarke is worthless. |
| Posted by: RMcLeod 2005-02-09 2:43:24 AM |
| #9 And I'm turning in for now. I'll see y'all tomorrow morning. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 1:16:59 AM |
| #8 Dan, I believe it was serious too. I just find the reporting around the event to be non-serious. "It would have been horrible, it would have killed 80,000, the materials are at your local hardware store, anyone could build one, and we won't say what it is." I doubt they're protecting us from the knowledge of how to make chlorine gas. And I think there's a discrepancy between "four cars, three of which were caught" and "twenty tons of chemicals." |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 1:08:18 AM |
| #7 Well I'm no chemist, but the guy I talked to from RAND on this stuff was and he was convinced that the Amman plot was deadly serious. His only caveat was that the chemicals might have been burnt up during the explosion, but if they weren't then they could have killed thousands. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-02-09 1:03:41 AM |
| #6 For some context, this is what was being reported back in April: From http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=9803:
But no details. Here's an Agency France-Presse article I found from today while googling the subject: http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/399314.htm. But it still lacks details. Bah... | |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 1:03:33 AM |
| #5 You think Sammy gave his consultants a choice in such matters? Well, I don't think he would call up Putin on the phone and say "I am altering the terms of our agreement. Pray that I don't alter them any further." And Aum was working with a nerve agent, in a very confined space (the Tokyo subway system). This would have been in the open air... besides the cyanide, which the article implies is a sort of "lagniappe" addition to the main mixture, the article doesn't mention what the main mixture was. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 12:54:53 AM |
| #4 You think Sammy gave his consultants a choice in such matters? As far as the Amman plot, it involved two dozen or so guys in Jordan coordinating with other al-Qaeda cells in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. A lot of the guys involved in the plot had already been through Darunta, meaning they already had some chemical experience, the Russian just gave them the information they wanted. IIRC, there 4 cars rather than 3 to be involved in the attack and it was focused on basically decapitating the Jordanian government long enough for the al-Qaeda underground in Jordan to come out of the woodwork and get a coup underway ensuring, if nothing else, that we got a replay of Black September. As far as the projected corpse count, keep in mind that Aum Shinrikyo came close, damn close, to killing that many in Tokyo not so long ago. The real problem with Amman is more or less that the perps are still out there and are still plotting - it's only a matter of time before they try again. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-02-09 12:46:11 AM |
| #3 Hi Dan! And you don't think Sammy had Russians on his payroll? I think he had consultants, but I don't think they were supposed to stick around after the fighting started and trust their survival to Sammy's military competence. I also find the narrative itself suspicious. They're basically implying that this was a small operation of a dozen guys or less who bought the raw materials from a couple industrial supply stores and put it together with a recipe from a single Russian consultant. Especially since they appear to be implying some sort of binary agent. (And there are simple ones that come to mind... but I'm not sure if three carloads would have been enough to kill 80,000 people in the attack, which is what is being reported as the sort of casualties that would have resulted if the attackers had managed to pull it off). I wasn't really keeping track of the raw details of the attack at the time, but I was under the impression that it included large trucks full of material and not just three cars. I guess I'm going to have to go back and go over the details from April when I get a chance. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-09 12:35:51 AM |
| #2 I saw some stuff on the al-Jayyousi case a couple of months ago at a terrorism conference. The basic jist of it is that Midhat Mursi and his mad scientists have chem but not (yet) bio-warfare capability and that it's only a matter of time before they succeed. I e-mailed Fred a few weeks back as to one of the emerging chemical experts in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, not sure if he saw it or not. The al-Jayyousi network assembled the weapons in Jordan and Syria and the Jordanians were quite right with respect to what they said Zarqawi wanted to do in Amman. The man is a mass murderer with no regard whatsoever for human life. And you don't think Sammy had Russians on his payroll? |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-02-09 12:05:50 AM |
| #1 It's always important to remember to run the filter of what any of the LLL media says through the "What's their actual agenda?" filter. Naturally they wouldn't want to cast this in a light that may be favorable on Bush, but likely they wanted to scoop it given that the article says they have the exclusive film. From it, I'd expect to see follow-ups about how easily these chemicals are obtained in the US and how Bush isn't doing anything about it. But the thought of them getting one of these to go off? Scary as hell. I don't exactly live in a high threat target area but I really don't want to have to start carrying a gas mask like the Israeli's had to for years. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2005-02-09 12:05:36 AM |