TERRORISM
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©Kurdistan Regional Security Council/Handout/EPA
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©Kurdistan Regional Security Council/Handout/EPA
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©Dugway Proving Ground Test Support Division
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attacks, is classed by the UN as a WMD only when used “in warfare.” Otherwise, it is one of the commonest chemicals on the planet, marketed in varying strengths.
Weapons of mass effect
In improvised incendiary devices (IIDs), flammable liquids and gas may be used as a substitute for explosives or to boost main explosive charges. A gas-enhanced explosive device is an IED containing bottled flammable gas. Addition of flammable gas is intended to enhance the heat, blast, or fragmentation effects. A van or truck is an ideal carrier as these vehicles can fit far more explosive
and chemical enhancement than a single suicide bomber. On 15 October 2017, two massive vehicle bombs attributed to Al-Shabaab killed more than 300 and injured over 500 people in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. One detonated near a fuel truck, creating an enormous fireball. Therefore, the tried and tested terrorist weapon – the VBIED – with the addition of TICs, flammable gas or fuel takes this terrorist modus operandi several steps further into the realms of high lethality and injury. Such ICDs and IIDs are classed as weapons of mass effect (WME). The Mogadishu twin VBIED attack in October was a WME par excellence.
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US Northern Command soldier conducting reconnaissance of a building containing TICs during a training exercise, Vibrant Response, held at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Complex, Ind., in July 2014. A vehicle is wrecked at the site of an alleged chemical attack carried out by Daesh in Iraq. A canister sits beside discoloured ground at the site of an alleged Daesh chemical attack in Iraq in 2015. Testing defence against chlorine attacks at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. A cloud of the gas moves among condemned shipping containers and vehicles that replicate urban structures and firstresponder response. It dissipates quickly and degrades into a salt. A mortar round used by Daesh in February 2016 reputedly contained mustard. Eyewitnesses said a rocket hit a guarding post in Ruwala village, some 16 km south of Makhmour, Iraq, resulting in three Peshmerga soldiers being severely affected.
Widespread supply
Thousands of tons of industrial chemicals and other civilian-use toxic materials are legally traded daily worldwide and are readily available. While other true CBRN materials become more available in countries where a previous WMD programme was conducted, and where insurgencies ensue – including in territories occupied by Daesh – ICDs can be fabricated without access to legacy munitions. The ingredients are legally traded and sold in regular household supplier outlets. Chlorine has multiple civilian household and industrial uses. No complicated method of airborne delivery CBNW 2018/01 25