Jordan 'was chemical bomb target' - BBC

[mulethree]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3635381.stm

Last Updated: Saturday, 17 April, 2004, 16:40 GMT 17:40 UK

Jordan 'was chemical bomb target'

Officials say materials for a chemical bomb have been found
Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists planned a chemical attack on Jordan's spy headquarters that could have killed 20,000 people, officials have
said.
Earlier this week King Abdullah said a massive attack had been thwarted by a series of arrests, but named no target.

Now unnamed officials say the suspects have confessed to plotting to detonate a chemical bomb on the Amman HQ of the Intelligence Services.

The plot was reportedly hatched by al-Qaeda suspect Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.

Washington has accused the 38-year-old Jordanian radical of masterminding a string of spectacular suicide bombings in Iraq.

'Deadly gas'

An official involved in the inquiry in Jordan told AFP news agency: "We found primary materials to make a chemical bomb which, if it had exploded, would have made nearly 20,000 deaths ... in an area of one square kilometre.

"The target of this bomb was the headquarters of the Intelligence Services," situated on a hill in the western suburb of Amman, he added.

The official said another operation planned by the network was to use "deadly gas against the US embassy and the prime minister's office in Amman ... and other public buildings in Jordan".

[mike_c]

1. first impressions: something smells wrong....

Why would al Qaeda plan attacks against Arabs in an Arab country? I mean, one can think of lots of plausible reasons (collusion with the infidels at the top of the list) but could the benefit possibly be worth the cost? Al Qaeda enjoys broad support among arabs-- it seems that an attack on an arab target would be problematical unless the target was widely despised, and not just in Jordan.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

2. they've always been against the current arab leadership

in saudi and jordan, at least. THey are too western-leaning and corrupt.

[mike_c]

4. oh I understand that....

It just seems like a dumb move at this point for al Qaeda to risk its popularity in the arab world by attacking arab targets unless, as I said, those targets are VERY clearly western aligned. I mean, clear to the average guy in the street.

[Iceburg]

10. Yup ...smells like a * rat trap ... planted by ***

Very astute mike_c!

When Canada went thru its separatist crisis in the 60's the work of foreign governments was unveiled by the the 1968 Royal Commission of Inquiry.

http://www.uni.ca/ascot.html
Operation Ascot: France's betrayal of Canada


notes by Carlos Roldan, Ph.D.

A growing body of evidence indicates Charles De Gaulle undertook covert operations in Quebec during his years as President of France with the aim of destabilizing Canada, using the various nationalist and separatist movements in Quebec as well as terrorist organizations in the United States. These subversive activities were known under the rubric of . Assistance et Cooperation Technique. or . Operation Ascot. .

Jacques Foccart, France. s Chief of Intelligence dispatched agents of the Service de Documentation, d. Enquête et de Contre Espionnage(SDECE), Philippe Rossillon, Edgar Chaumette, Jean-Luc Gaillardere and Tom Bailby to Quebec with the specific purpose of developing and fomenting the growth of separatist movements such as those of Adrien Arcand, Pierre Bourgault. s RIN, and the FLQ. In addition, De Gaulle also instructed the recruitment and infiltration of agents in both the Quebec and Canadian civil service. These responsibilities were handled mainly by Xavier Deniau and Philippe Rossillon.

In September 1968 the Royal Commission of Inquiry on National Security secretly submitted its final report to the Government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau(a heavily doctored version of this report was released in 1969). It identified possible foreign intervention in the Quebec separatist movement. Prime Minister Trudeau then raised the issue in the House of Commons, directly identifying Philippe Rossillon as . a sort of secret agent. . A separate, secret, RCMP report to the Prime Minister, parts of which were leaked to Canadian Press, identified Francois Dorlot, Michèle Duclos and Louise Beaudoin, among others, as subversives

SDECE agents in Paris sheltered and even financed FLQ members, arranging further training in terrorist camps in Algeria, Jordan, Turkey and eastern Europe. Philippe Rossillon acted as a conduit for the coordination of such activities. Recruited back in Quebec by Philippe Rossillon, Francois Dorlot and Louise Beaudoin sheltered Francois Mario Bachand at their home in Paris up to a few days before his assassination. Bachand was scheduled to depart for terrorist camp training but never made it. Police investigation of his murder was thwarted by SDECE to the point that the RCMP insisted the matter be handled through Interpol and not the French police. To this day, justice for Mario Bachand, a young Canadian citizen murdered in France has been thus denied. The perpetrators of his assassination have long been well known to the authorities in both France and Canada and their identities withheld.
more http://www.uni.ca/ascot.html

[KC21304]

3. Zarqawi probably hates his government just as much as

Bin Ladin hates the Saudi government for cooperating with the US.

[mulethree]

5. any attacks in Arabia that weren't American targets?

Everything I've seen in an Arab country so far was tied to places with many Americans.

I saw 2 other links that were essentially the same story but did not specify the Jordanian Intelligence headquarters as the target or the bit about the King giving a medal. I wish they'd identify the "chemical" and "poison" agents.

[Sufi Marmot]

6. "chemical bomb"?....

I wish they'd identify the "chemical" and "poison" agents.

Me too. I'm trying to think of what it could have been - most chemical weapons don't "explode", do they? Bombs explode, chem weapons just emit whatever noxious substance they're designed to produce (wouldn't the energy from the explosion just destroy the noxious agent?) I'm not an expert but I don't know of any explosives specifically designed to give off poisonous chemicals as a byproduct.

20,000 predicted casualties? Cyanide? Nerve gas? I don't think either would be efficiently spread by an explosion...

:shrug:

-SM

[sofa king]

7. It's diabolically simple.

A lot of chemical weapon designs are binary these days. You can take two inert chemicals and then combine them with an explosion to create a new, deadly chemical.

One could have an operative infiltrate the local supermarket, carefully guide his career until he is responsible for the cleaning aisle, have him rearrange the shelves so that the Windex and the Clorox are next to one another, then set cans of Ajax loaded with C4 on either side and explode them simultaneously. Blammo, you've just added deadly chlorine gas to your terrorist act. Other such combinations are, regrettably, just as simple and easy to incorporate into current terrorist tactics. Rat poison in Palestinian suicider bombers' belts is one current example. Ramp that up to the railcar level and you can create mass murder.

[Sufi Marmot]

8. How efficient is that?

One could have an operative infiltrate the local supermarket, carefully guide his career until he is responsible for the cleaning aisle, have him rearrange the shelves so that the Windex and the Clorox are next to one another, then set cans of Ajax loaded with C4 on either side and explode them simultaneously. Blammo, you've just added deadly chlorine gas to your terrorist act.

Seems to me that the force of the blast would simply disperse both chemicals, (from their initial state of being close to each other but in separate containers, outward into space where they are less likely to come into contact...) Sure, there would be a little bit of mixing, but certainly not as much as if they were just mixed directly.

This article suggests that if the accounts are actually true, adding rat poison to an explosive bomb is futile.

-SM

[ET Awful]

9. Sorry, but . . .

in order for such a combination to work would require a carefully designed device which would force the components together into a concentrated area without first incinerating either component. There's also the little fact that chlorine gas could not disperse effectively in such a scenario, the amount you're talking about to kill 20,000 people could not be generated in such a fashion, and the force of the explosion you described would not be effective.

Sorry, but the same also applies for your rat poison example. The quantities necessary for such a poison to be effective on any large scale would require massive amounts, not the small amounts able to be carried by a suicide bomber. Hell, in the scenario described in the Slate article (which refers to it acting as an anticoagulant), aspirin would do the same thing. But, as with the first example, the odds are more of the substance being incinerated by the explosion than they are of it being dissipated.

[sofa king]

11. Without chemicals terror itself would be impossible

My examples are deliberately incomplete, and I refuse to improve them. The point is that yes, if you wanted to incorporate chemical weapons into terrorist attacks you could probably do it. If you want details on how to expand such an attack so that it will affect thousands, you can ask Union Carbide how to do it.

It's also true that chemical weapons are difficult to effectively deploy, as Aum Shinrykio discovered in 1995. But they happen to scare the crap out of people, which is an integral part of terrorism. And I'll bet you a few hundred gallons of osmium tetroxide that Jordan isn't the only place such an act has been contemplated recently.

[Sufi Marmot]

12. Osmium tetroxide, etc...

And I'll bet you a few hundred gallons of osmium tetroxide that Jordan isn't the only place such an act has been contemplated recently.

I'm not convinced that osmium tetroxide is available in gallon quantities.

Commercial quantities are typically very small and prices are high. Cost for the largest, commercially available units from a leading U.S. chemical supplier range from $118 for 1 gram of the solid compound to $195 for a 25 mL ampoules containing 2.5% OsO4 by weight, dissolved in water (0.625 grams OsO4 per vial).

There are thousands of harmful/toxic/noxious substances out there that could injure people (that's the price we pay for living in the modern era...), but the vast majority of them are manufactured and solid on such a small scale that their use is unlikely to injure many thousands of people (although certainly they could injure a limited number of people in the immediate area of use). I just find claims of 20,000 potential casualties dubious and possibly alarmist without having more info. I AM all for tighter control over the sale of hazardous chemicals, as well as for increased security at sites of industrial production.

But they happen to scare the crap out of people, which is an integral part of terrorism. The fact that fear is voluntary notwithstanding, all the better reason to dispassionately assess the real risks of these substances, and whether the alleged plans of the terrorists were actually feasible.

-SM

[ET Awful]

14. Union Carbide is a bit larger than a supermarket which was your . . .

example.

Sorry, but you have simply made a sensationalistic scenario that is not plausible or, in reality, possible.

[newyawker99]

15. Hi sofa king!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[daleo]

13. This seems hugely inflated

Chemical attacks in WWI were awful, but I don't think they ever killed thousands with one bomb. The Bhopal disaster only directly killed about 2000 to 16000, depending on which source you accept (Union Carbide low-balls it, Greenpeace has much larger numbers).