Friday, June 05, 2015

ISIS Developing Chemical Weapons

by JASmius



The Aussies, at least, are paying attention and taking the Islamic State threat seriously:

The Islamic State group has shown it is prepared to use chemical weapons and is likely to have among its recruits the technical expertise to develop them, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

In a speech late Friday, Bishop said Australia had no doubt that the Syrian regime had used toxic chemicals including sarin and chlorine over the past four years....

"The use of chlorine by Daesh, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development," she said in Perth, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

"Daesh is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons."

The use of chlorine in homemade bombs has been reported in several parts of Iraq and Syria, with car and roadside bombs easy to rig with chlorine canisters.

So ISIS has the personnel, the expertise, the raw materials, and it goes without saying that they have the financial resources if they're acquiring nuclear warheads.  It also goes without saying that if they can smuggle nukes across the former southern border, they sure as shinola can sneak in canisters of chlorine and sarin and mustard gas and other nerve gases.  Ditto plague agents if they can get their hands on them, by the simple implement of infecting "patient zero" volunteers to infiltrate the U.S. and spread the contagion wherever they go.

How difficult would it be for an ISIS agent to rent a little Cesna aircraft, fly over a major population center and empty a stock of nerve gas canisters?  Or empty them in a subway system?  There are any number of conceivable ways for chemical and biological attacks to be unleashed, and unlike with bombs or Islamikazes or nukes, we wouldn't know we were under attack until people started collapsing and dying en masse.

And remember, we can't monitor or intercept their communications, so we'll have no advance warning of any kind.

Almost makes me wonder what they're waiting for.

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