Global War on Terror Watch: WMD Used in Chechnya

The Scotsman has Nerve-gas fears after 45 fall sick

AT LEAST 45 people, most of them children, have been hospitalised in the Russian region of Chechnya with an illness that doctors say might be nerve-gas poisoning.

Pupils, teachers and workers began reporting breathing trouble and headaches on Friday at a school in the town of Starogladovskaya, emergency workers said.

As of yesterday, 38 children and seven teachers had been hospitalised, said Oleg Ugnivenko, a spokesman for emergency situations ministry. Preliminary investigation points to an unspecified kind of nerve gas, said emergency workers and Chechen government officials.

Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters has been on the story, Have Islamists Begun Using Chemical Weapons?

This preliminary report, if confirmed, will certainly cause many people to wonder where the rebels/Islamists got their WMD. One likely source, of course, would be from the Russians themselves, or at least from stocks left over from Cold War production. Another possibility could be Syria or Iran, but that also leaves open the possibility that the weapons themselves originated in Iraq first.

Separatist rebels, who have been fighting Russian forces in Chechnya for most of the past decade, have committed a series of terrorist attacks in Chechnya and other parts of Russia, including the seizure of hostages in a school in Beslan in 2004.

The Chechen prosecutor general, Valery Kuznetsov, was reported yesterday as saying that “to speak about a terrorist act is premature” but “all possibilities are being considered”.

Flap’s bet is that these chemical agents are from the old Russian stockpiles.

Nasty terrible chemicals and to use them against children…….. sounds like Saddam Hussein against the Kurds……

Stay tuned……