Hamas:  Dangers May Be Greater Than Recent Casualties

By Mike Nartker

Global Security Newswire

The crude chemical weapons used by Hamas during two recent suicide bombings in Israel caused few casualties, but the psychological impact and the threat of state sponsorship may still make chemical weapons dangerous in the hands of terrorists, sources told Global Security Newswire last week.

The two bombings, one in Jerusalem and one in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, are thought to have involved a crude attempt at chemical weapons, Israeli officials said last week.  Tests conducted on bomb remnants detected traces of chemicals, which led officials to believe the bombs had been dipped in pesticides before they were used (see GSN, Dec. 10).

Crude chemical bombs would likely not be any more effective than bombs made simply with conventional explosives, said Van Blackwood, a spokesman for the Federation of American Scientists Working Group on Biological Weapons Verification in Washington.  “If this is the end of their technology, then there isn’t much concern,” he said.

The heat from an explosion would likely neutralize any of the chemical weapons in a laced bomb, said Ian Lesser, a policy researcher for the think tank RAND in Arlington, Va.

Blackwood said the failure of the Hamas attack to inflict additional casualties through the use of chemicals illustrates the difficulties for terrorist groups to make a biological or chemical weapon.  “It’s not easy even for large terrorist groups [such as Hamas],” Blackwood said.

Not Just Lack of Casualties

The relative ineffectiveness of crude chemical weapons is not the only disincentive against using such indiscriminate weapons, Lesser said.  For example, the close proximity of Arabs and Israelis living together makes the weapons less attractive.  “An Arab trying to hit Israelis may not hit who you want,” Lesser said.

Additionally, Israel might respond to the use of a weapon of mass destruction with more radical measures than it would use against conventional weapons, according to Lesser.  He added that international support for such a reaction is also more likely.

Lesser said these drawbacks may make the use of any more advanced chemical weapons unattractive to terrorist groups like Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Although there are fewer constraints on these groups than in the past, Lesser said, the two groups “don’t seem to have an apocalyptic agenda.”

Fear Factor

The more damaging effect of such crude chemical attacks may be psychological, experts said.  “Terrorist groups understand that fear is as important as casualties,” Blackwood said.  Lesser agreed that there was “no question” that the thought of chemical weapons scares people.

The fear caused among the U.S. population by the recent crude anthrax attacks may have helped to inspire Hamas, an Israeli official in Washington said.  “If anthrax was driving Americans crazy, the extremists see it as a good idea,” the official said.

Lesser said, however, that the group may have looked further back for inspiration, to the Gulf War.  While the Iraqi Scud attacks on Israel caused few casualties, he said, the idea that the missiles might have been equipped with weapons of mass destruction inspired fear, and fear of weapons of mass destruction has lasted in Israel.

“If [terrorists] are looking for any kind of echo, it would be an echo of that,” Lesser said.

The experience with Iraqi Scuds has prepared Israelis for nonconventional attacks, the Israeli official said.  Every Israeli citizen has a kit that contains a gas mask and various medications effective against chemical and biological agents, he said.  Still, he added, security professionals in Israel took the recent Hamas attacks very seriously.

“It’s a transformation and we have to transform as well,” the official said.

State Backing?

A group wishing to conduct a more powerful chemical attack would likely need backing from countries such as Iraq or Iran, experts said.  Even though the Hamas bombers acted alone, there was an organization behind them, Lesser said.  “Logistical support would be needed.”

State sponsors may be reluctant to give terrorists more powerful warfare agents, Lesser said.  Weapons of mass destruction are a “symbol of power” for many states, he said, and added that the concept of deterrence is more of an issue for states than it is for terrorists.

The prospect that groups like Hamas could receive state support for attacks with weapons of mass destruction still has officials worried.  “The combination of a state sponsor, weapons of mass destruction and terrorists is a very dangerous equation,” the Israeli official said.

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Threat Assessment:  Chemical Plants Could Be Targets

U.S. officials have been concerned since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks about the potential dangers to chemical and hazardous materials plants, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

There are at least 123 U.S. chemical plants that store toxic chemicals, which if released, would put more than 1 million people in harm’s way, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis.  More than 700 plants store chemicals that could harm at least 100,000 people and more than 3,000 plants have at least 10,000 people living nearby.

A review of EPA documents included the following worst-case scenarios:

*         A California plant has enough chlorine to poison up to 4 million people in Orange and Los Angeles Counties.

*         A plant in Philadelphia stores 400,000 pounds of hydrogen fluoride that could asphyxiate close to 4 million nearby people.

*         A West Virginia sister plant of the Union Carbide Chemical plant in Bhopal, India, stores up to 200,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate, which could turn into a toxic cloud over 600,000 people near Charleston.

The Justice Department said last year that the threat to chemical plants was “both real and credible” and could be more dangerous than an attack on a nuclear power plant.  “The ubiquitousness of industrial facilities possessing toxic chemicals and their proximity to population centers also make them attractive targets,” the Justice Department concluded.

Industry Safety Measures

There is no federal counterterrorism security standard, however, for chemical plants, according to the Post.  Instead, the EPA is relying on the chemical industry to improve security voluntarily.  “Certainly the industry has a very powerful incentive to do the right thing,” said Bob Bostock, assistant EPA administrator for homeland security.  “It ought to be their worst nightmare that their facility would be target of a terrorist act because they did not meet their responsibility to the community.” 

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group based in Virginia, said its members have increased security at plants since Sept. 11.  “Our industry has gotten the message and is working hard to make sure that our facilities are safer than ever before,” said council President Fred Webber.

Many plants have increased identification checks, hired additional security guards and improved perimeter security since the attacks, according to the council.  The council has also published voluntary site security guidelines.

The council is opposed, however, to recently introduced legislation that would require plants to assess risks and propose remedies.  “Additional regulations, stronger enforcement—that isn’t going to do the trick,” Webber said.  “What you need is the industry stepping up on its own, preventing the worst from happening.”

The EPA has met with industry officials since Sept. 11 and urged them to improve safety, according to the Post.  The EPA is evaluating if its enforcement powers give it jurisdiction over plant security, the Post reported.  “There is quite a bit of work to do,” said Jim Mackris, chief of the EPA’s Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office.  There are limits, however, on what the EPA can do and much depends on the companies, Mackris said.

“If you blow up, you probably are going to lose some customers, going to lose some workers and going to lose some reputation,” Mackris said.

Critics’ Response

Chemical industry critics, such as labor unions and citizen groups, have said the new security measures are superficial and inconsistent.  “The line was that voluntary initiatives were enough,” said Paul Orum, coordinator of the Working Group on Community Right-to-Know.  “The line I heard was that a worst-case release or explosion was so unlikely that it wasn’t worth planning for,” Orum said.  “After Sept. 11, it’s clear that it is.”

Critics have previously warned that the chemical industry is not prepared for a terrorist attack, the Post reported.  A 1999 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found problems at more than two-dozen plants in two communities, which sources said were in Las Vegas and the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia.

“Security at chemical plants ranged from fair to very poor,” the agency said.  “Most security gaps were the result of complacency and lack of awareness of the threat.”

Plant security officials were “very pessimistic about their ability to deter sabotage by employees, yet none of them had implemented simple background checks for key employees such as chemical process operators,’ the report said.

Security around shipping areas, such as loading docks, trains and trucks ranged from “poor to non-existent,” the report said.  “Railcars containing cyanide compounds, flammable liquid pesticides, liquefied petroleum gases, chlorine, acids and butadiene were parked alongside residential areas.”

“Inherent Safety” may be Solution

One problem the new measures do not address is that of “inherent safety”—changing processes or using chemicals that are less dangerous to reduce the use of hazardous materials, according to critics.  Supporters of inherent safety have said it is the best way to reduce risks.

“The week after Sept. 11, we had a meeting on plant security,” said Stuart Greenberg, of Environmental Health Watch, in Cleveland, Ohio.  “We had a big regional wastewater treatment plant, and we said, ‘Isn’t it great, they don’t have to worry because they switched from chlorine to sodium hypochlorite [bleach] to purify their water?’” Greenberg said (Grimaldi/Gugliotta, Washington Post, Dec. 16).

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Czech Republic:  Troops Ready for Anti-terrorism Campaign

The Czech Republic plans to send an anti-chemical unit to Kuwait to support the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign in early January (see GSN, Nov. 2), the Mlada fronta Dnes reported, according to the Czech news agency CTK.  Mlada fronta Dnes said troops could go to Afghanistan, Pakistan or Kuwait, according to CTK. 

Military strategists said sending troops to Kuwait could be a sign that NATO would extend retaliatory attacks to Iraq, the paper said, but added that one military expert said deployment in Kuwait might be only a “stopover,” according to CTK.

The Czech Parliament was expected to vote on the deployment this week (Prague CTK, Dec. 13 in FBIS-EEU, Dec. 14).

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