Growing Chemical Industry Could Pose Risk to Asia

A growing Asian chemical industry combined with terrorist activity raises the risk of a chemical attack in the region, a Japanese security official said today (see GSN, July 6).

“We should not underestimate, because in this region there is a growing chemical industry,” said Kazuhiro Nakai, director of the biological and chemical weapon conventions division at Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Reuters reported. “Secondly, we have a local terrorist network here. They are linking with international terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda,” he added.

The threat of chemical terrorism could be reduced by broader implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Nakai said following a conference of chemical experts in Malaysia (Reuters, July 9).

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