BBC reporting that a roadside bomb thought to contain a small amount of sarin nerve agent has exploded near a US military convoy in Iraq.
Details to follow.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said the blast caused a small release of the substance, and two people were treated for exposure to the agent.
The substance was found in an artillery shell inside a bag discovered by a US convoy a few days ago, he said.
It appears to be the first evidence of nerve gas existing in Iraq since the start of the US-led war last year.
The toxic nerve gas is 20 times as deadly as cyanide.
A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person by effectively crippling their nervous system.
Chota - Well I suppose this was stolen from US supplies in Iraq, if so what ever was it doing there in the first place!
hmmmmm
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*Originally posted by Chota: *
Chota - Well I suppose this was stolen from US supplies in Iraq, if so what ever was it doing there in the first place!
hmmmmm
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Indeed. Was sarin gas not used by that Buddhist group in a terrorist attack in Japan some years ago?
More details.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A small amount of the nerve agent sarin was found in a shell that exploded in Iraq, the U.S. army said Monday in the first announcement of discovery of any of the weapons on which Washington made its case for war.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference the substance had been found in an artillery shell inside a bag discovered by a U.S. convoy a few days ago. The round had exploded, causing a small release of the substance, he said.
“The Iraq Survey Group has confirmed today that a 155 (mm) artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found. The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) that was discovered by a U.S. force convoy,” he said.
“A detonation occurred before the IED be could be rendered inoperable,” Kimmitt said, adding that two members of an explosives team had been treated for exposure to the substance.
Kimmitt said the round, designed to mix the sarin in flight, belonged to a class of ordnance that the ousted government of Saddam Hussein claimed to have destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war.
“It is a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time, and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED… when it exploded it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it,” he said.
IEDs are bombs usually planted at the side of the road to explode as coalition vehicles pass.
The United States launched its invasion of Iraq last year, accusing then-president Saddam Hussein of developing chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. Failure to find such weapons has stirred criticism in the United States and Britain, Washington’s closest ally in the war.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5166415
Looks like a warning shot.
thats realy interesting, I was browsing for the details of Sarine and I found this realy amazing facts about this nerve agent, you guys might be interested in it, The realy Interesting part was this…
*Iraq mass produced sarin during the Iran-Iraq war with the expectation that it would be used quickly, and they therefore skipped several purification steps. Fresh agent was about 60% pure and heavily contaminated with hydrogen fluoride (which, of course, also causes health problems in exposed individuals). When production caught up with demand, the Iraqis started storing their sarin in refrigerated “igloos” to prolong its storage life. However, **even when stored in the igloos, the material rapidly degraded, becoming less than 10% pure within 2 years. ** *
hmmm … may be Iraqis now using thier home refrigerators for storing it! and ofcourse producing it somewhere in Najaff.. I don’t think so…
I wonder how in earth this shell got there in the 1st place unless its one of those setups we witnessed in the past.
No wonder Blix, the US and everyone else has had such a hard time finding the WMD stockpiles. Now that we know that Iraqi Eskimos are shuttling them from igloo to igloo in burlap bags, I bet we find more in a hurry.
^ and the amazing thing is, all media was saying even the adminstration, that Iraq hid them somewhere in the desert or dug holes and burried all these stockpiles there!! not to mention "mobile labotories" which Colin Powel , admited two days back, was a hoax.
neocons are certainly onto the terrorists !! like sharon..
WHOAA !!! excellent news huh.. first the body of beheaded berg is found layin on the side of a road now the sirin bomb !!! fantastica.. berg was executed by ‘zarqawi’ (iraq - al-quida connection).. and now the sirin bomb (bio/chem weapons connection) !! bravo !!
:yukh: :yukh: :yukh:
yeah .. US supplied Iran-Iraq era agent which isn't even potent anymore.... tell us something new mv..
Saddam said he destroyed all of them?
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*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
Saddam said he destroyed all of them?
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There is no proof that these are from the Saddam arsenal, which was supplied to him by States to start with. The Tokyo underground attack was also a sarin gas attack.
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*Originally posted by ehsan: *
There is no proof that these are from the Saddam arsenal, which was supplied to him by States to start with. The Tokyo underground attack was also a sarin gas attack.
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So what exactly is the point you are making?
Are you saying that it was not part of Saddam's arsenal because he had no arsenal?
Are you saying it was part of Saddam's arsenal but that's OK because the US gave him samples of Sarin?
Are you saying Japanese terrorists have infiltrated Iraq and are trying to use Sarin gas on coalition troops in support of the Iraqi freedom fighters?
Still too early to make assumptions. The countries of the former soviet union are unable to account for all their nukes even today, and it is quite plausible that if this was an Iraqi shell, then it was one that slipped out of the system and could not be accounted for (like soviet nukes), and was simply booked as being "destroyed" by a functionary too scared to let Saddam's government know that a weapon of mass destruction had literally been lost.
And, of course, the other option, for the conspiracy theorists out there is.....
....that it's suspicious that in an election year where Bush is being walloped for not finding the WMDs he invaded Iraq to find, a chemical attack occurs that "fortunately" leads to no fatalities... ;)
Funny how this sarin agent rocket was "discovered" just a day after Colin Powell said in NBC's Meet the Press that CIA supplied intelligence about Iraqi WMDs was wrong :>