Nature of Terrorist CBRN Hazards

I haven't seen much talk at all about the Taliban's gas attacks against Afghani female students, but I want to illustrate a very pertinent and real issue here. It goes to the nature of what some call the "terrorist WMD threat."

The pupils were lining up outside their classrooms for morning assembly when one girl suddenly collapsed unconscious. "She was only little," said Gulcheena, a 13-year-old student of the school who fell ill herself moments later.

They were among 90 Afghan school girls rushed to hospital yesterday unconscious and vomiting, possibly victims of a gas poisoning attack on their school in Mahmud Raqi village.
----------
Gulcheena described the gas smelling like a chemical known locally as Mallatin, which farmers sometimes spread on fields to poison foraging birds. The provincial police chief, Matiullah Safi, said none of the students, teachers or support staff had seen anything suspicious. "It looks like something was sprayed in the school but so far no one has been arrested," he said. "There's no proof, at the moment, that this was an attack."

But the alleged poisoning comes just days after girls at a school in nearby Charikar, on the road north of Kabul, complained of similar symptoms.
----------
Speaking from her hospital bed, Gulcheena said she collapsed moments after rushing outside. "The teachers splashed water on my face, but when I opened my eyes the next thing I knew, I was in hospital." Seayahmuy, a 15-year-old student in her final year at the school, said doctors had ordered her to stay in overnight. She said she did not remember a strange smell, nor did she see any gas. Dr Abdul Mateen said most of the patients were suffering from vomiting, nausea and dizziness. "We don't have the equipment here to do a full diagnosis," Dr Mateen said. Blood samples were being sent for analysis to the US base at Bagram.

Terrorist groups who are intent on using "CBR hazards" don't want to go to states with WMD programs and pay for weapons (too complicated and public), and they lack the expertise and patience to develop military warfare agents (not everyone can match Aum Shinrikyo). But what they can do is avail themselves of local industrial chemicals and radiological materials that, while not a mass casualty threat, can harm and terrify small groups of people.

Yes, there is a threat of CBR terrorism in our future scenarios of irregular warfare. But it isn't the Cold War threat that the Soviet Union or even what 199o Iraq could offer. We need to develop serious requirements for our military and homeland security forces, rather than blathering on about how terrorist-released anthrax clouds are going to outdo a nuclear blast. Thus endth the lesson.

Comments

[nerdgirl]

Concur heartily!

[Patrick Coyle]

Excellent Points

[manoj]

Reads like Malathion, a common pesticide used in South Asia.