Russia I:  Theater Gas Was Probably Powerful Narcotic, Experts Say

The gas used in the Oct. 26 Moscow theater raid — said by Russia to be fentanyl — more likely was a fentanyl derivative called carfentanil, a powerful narcotic usually used to subdue large animals, the Washington Post reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 30).

Carfentanil is 8,000 times as powerful as morphine, is relatively safe to use and would disperse easily in a large space.

“It was the safest drug that you could have used in this fashion and hope to have high percentage of survivors,” said Theodore Stanley, a University of Utah professor of anesthesiology.  “The fact that carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl makes it 100 times easier to use than fentanyl — and that makes it a logical choice,” he added.

Tests conducted on two German hostages who survived the raid suggest the aerosol that Russian commandos pumped through the theater’s ventilation system might also have included halothane, a traditional anesthetic (see GSN, Oct. 28).  Those same tests failed to detect fentanyl.  Carfentanil would not be detected in a test for fentanyl, according to the Post.

If halothone was included in the aerosol, the mixture could have been much more dangerous and the effect of the antidote that emergency crews had on hand could have been negated, the Post reported.  Fentanyl comes in a solid form, however, and Russian officials may have used halothane to make the substance easier to disperse.

“It takes a staggering amount of fentanyl to subdue a patient,” said David Drover, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University.  “To actually fill a room, even a small room, would have taken a swimming pool-full.  No way,” he added.

While many Moscow doctors reported symptoms consistent with an opioid overdose, several patients did not have trouble breathing and presented confusing symptoms, according to Yuri Goldfarb, chief toxicologist at Sklifosovski emergency hospital.

“In general, I can conclude a number of symptoms were different than a classic opiate overdose,” Goldfarb said (Brown, Baker, Washington Post, Nov. 9).

Meanwhile, Russian hospitals have so far discharged 622 freed hostages and currently continue to treat 39 people, including one child and one foreigner, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported today (see GSN, Nov. 8; RIA Novosti, Nov. 11).

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Russia II:  Moscow Holds Weapons Disposal Conference

U.S. and European experts are expected to discuss difficulties in funding Russia’s chemical weapons disposal efforts during a Russian Red Cross-sponsored conference scheduled to begin today in Moscow (see GSN, Oct. 31). 

One-third of the funds for Russia’s chemical weapons destruction program come from international aid, according to ITAR-Tass.  Russia has complained, however, that such aid has not been regularly provided as promised.

“All the participants in the arrangements should supply the stipulated amounts of funds to reprocess chemical weapons stockpiles and to keep up with the schedule of funds allocations,” the Red Cross said in a press release (Anatoly Yurkin, ITAR-Tass, Nov. 10).

Russia plans to increase funding for its chemical weapons destruction program, but still needs foreign aid, Sergey Kiriyenko, chairman of the Russian state commission on chemical disarmament, said yesterday.  Russia plans to allocate $190 million for chemical weapons disposal next year, up from $16 million this year, he said (ITAR-Tass/BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Nov. 10).

Zinovy Pak, general director of the Russian Ammunition Agency, said today that Russia plans to destroy its chemical weapons in several stages with an end date of 2012 (see GSN, Oct. 15).  Russia plans to have 2 percent of its weapons stockpiles destroyed by 2007, 45 percent by 2009 and the remainder destroyed by 2012, he said (RosBusinessConsulting, Nov. 11).

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Russia:  Officials Raise Hostage Death Toll

Without explanation, Russian authorities yesterday said 128 hostages died in the Oct. 26 raid on a Moscow theater — eight more than had previously been reported (see GSN, Nov. 4).

Russia said that 123 hostages had died from the fenatnyl gas used in the raid and officials increased the number of hostages that were shot by the Chechen extremists who held the theater, from two to five.  Officials did not explain when or how the hostages were shot.

The Internet news site Grani reported that 136 hostages had died, but speculated that officials were going to announce the deaths slowly to reduce the fallout from the raid (Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, Nov. 8).

Among the dead civilians were eight foreigners, from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Austria, the United States and the Netherlands, according to the Moscow city prosecutor.

Russian commandos who stormed the theater also killed 41 Chechens, 22 men and 19 women.  Authorities have said it was necessary to kill the extremists to prevent them from detonating more than 100 pounds of explosives that they had set up in the theater, which they captured Oct. 23.

Doctors continue to treat 67 hostages who are still hospitalized from the effects of the gas.  Of those, 26 have been discharged but returned for further care.

Nine Russian Federal Security Service commandos are also hospitalized, most likely from the effects of the gas, said Sergei Goncharov, former leader of the elite unit (Judith Ingram, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Nov. 8).

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International Response:  Geneva Simulates Chemical Attack at Airport

Local officials in Geneva yesterday simulated a terrorist attack involving chemical weapons at the city’s airport to evaluate regional emergency response personnel (see GSN, Sept. 10).

During the exercise — called CAPITO 02 and witnessed by 60 diplomats from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — a thermos flask containing simulated nerve agent was left in a garbage can near the airport’s check-in terminals, according to Agence France-Presse.

“We use a product which reacts like a sarin gas but it’s not painful,” said Geneva official Marc Zuffa.

Local police arrived to help evacuate the terminal 20 minutes after symptoms were reported, AFP reported.  Within 30 minutes, medical experts suspected that initial symptoms indicated the attack involved a nerve agent.

“Four hours are needed between the moment of the attack and the time the whole plan of action is totally operational,” said Raymond Wicky, deputy commander of the Geneva fire department and head of the exercise.

In total, 200 people participated in the exercise, which caused 14 simulated fatalities (Agence France-Presse, Nov. 7).

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United States I:  New Research Offers Safer Incapacitating Chemicals

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Recent pharmaceutical advances could permit development of drugs much safer than those used by Russian authorities to rescue more than 600 hostages last month, according to a leading expert (see GSN, Nov. 4).

The Russian rescue has been criticized after it became clear that the chemical used to subdue the hostage-takers was responsible for killing up to 118 hostages (see GSN, Nov. 4).

“I think the studies in this area are getting close, [but] we’re not perfect yet,” professor Theodore Stanley, an anesthesiology expert at the University of Utah’s medical school, said.

There are currently drugs that have been researched in the United States and abroad that may be “10 times safer” than what the Russians are believed to have used, an aerosol based on the common anesthetic fentanyl.  Some of the new chemicals are “similar” to fentanyl and some are not, he said.

Stanley and others suspect Russia used either sufentanil or carfentanil, potent agents derived from fentanyl that have also been researched by the U.S. military.

The new drugs are still in the early stages of research and it is not yet clear whether they could be both safe and effective enough to use, he said.

“We haven’t done enough studies yet to know,” he said.

A 1999 U.S. Defense Department document also alluded to promising agents, saying “recent pharmaceutical developments suggest that new approaches to safer chemical immobilizers with improved performance characteristics may be available.”

That document solicited bids for research into promising new agents for use as incapacitants, examining “recent breakthroughs in the pharmacological classes such as anesthetics/analgesics, tranquilizers, hypnotics and neuromuscular blockers.”

Complex Challenge

Parker Ferguson, whose company, Optimetrics, won the contract for the initial phase of the Pentagon research, said major challenges remained to developing an incapacitant both potent enough to be effective and safe enough to use.

“It’s often a tradeoff … It’s a very complex proposition,” he said.

An abstract of his company’s bid for the work said recent studies suggested the existence of “three new agent combinations with potential for meeting user objectives.”

Ferguson would not discuss the results of the work, for which he was the lead researcher.  He said, though, that to his knowledge no one had yet solved the safety-effectiveness problem.

The first phase of the Pentagon program was to analyze “promising new chemical immobilizing agents or combinations of agents.”

The second phase, not yet initiated, would involve “establishing desired performance and operational characteristics with respect to potential scenarios of use.”

A third phase would list various military and domestic law enforcement scenarios for which the technology might be used.

U.S. Rejected Earlier Agent

U.S. researchers for years sought to come up with an agent considered safe enough to use and so far have been unsuccessful, according to experts.

During the 1960s, the U.S. military put a substantial amount of money into developing and weaponizing a delirium-causing agent called BZ.  Those weapons were dismantled and the BZ destroyed, however, and since then the U.S. Army has not reported having any temporarily incapacitating munitions in its arsenal.  

Experts say the U.S. Army became disenchanted with the weapon because of its unpredictability.  A 1969 National Security Council report said BZ was unlikely to be employed because of a “wide range of variability of effects, long onset time, and inefficiency of existing munitions.” An Army history cited the inability to find an agent that would satisfy “practical and political concerns.”  The Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997, restricts BZ. 

Through a program for developing riot control chemicals, dating back to the 1970s, the military conducted research on derivatives of fentanyl — sufentanil and carfentanil — but found they could cause subjects to stop breathing, according to professor Matthew Meselson, co-director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare Armament and Arms Limitation.  Subsequent research involved mixing or chasing it with an antidote naloxone to reduce the danger of respiratory failure, he said.

Safety Concerns

Optimetric’s bid on the Pentagon’s 1999 solicitation said previous approaches to developing a safe and reliable immobilizing agent “were deficient in one or more technical aspects such as low safety ratios or inadequate performance characteristics.  This program will lead to a capability that does not currently exist.”

Fentanyl-derived drugs are found to be highly effective at depressing the nervous system, and ideal for the operating room because if administered correctly they cause no lasting health effects.

“It’s one of the safest drugs that anesthesiologists have … If you know how to use it, it’s probably one of the safest drugs you could imagine,” said Stanley.

An important consequence of its use, however, is that it can depress or inhibit respiration, which is acceptable when administered by an anesthesiologist, but potentially fatal in an uncontrolled environment.  The drug is likely to be more dangerous for children than for adults, which could pose a problem when used on a crowd.

Chemicals are already used for riot control, such as pepper spray and tear gas, which temporarily incapacitate through irritation.  Ferguson said such chemicals are not ideal because they have been found to be ineffective on some people.

“If you sprayed Ray Lewis, a middle linebacker from the Baltimore Ravens or someone like a defensive back for the Washington Redskins, they’d probably take your head off,” Ferguson said.

A major part of the difficulty with using common fentanyl-derived products as incapacitants, Ferguson said, is being able to deliver an effective but safe dose to everyone who might come in contact with it. 

For instance, if Russian authorities had used the substance by putting it into the building air vents, he said, “the people underneath or right near the vent might get a lethal dose and others might not.”

Treaty Concerns

Arms control experts say that regardless of their safety, the development and use of nonlethal chemical incapacitants pose a challenge to several international legal norms related to the rules of war.

The U.S. military views developing nonlethal chemical incapacitants in part as a solution for dealing with warfare situations involving innocent civilians.

The National Research Council, part of the National Academies of Sciences, appeared to endorse that view in a preliminary report released this week, first reported by the Los Angeles Times (see GSN, Nov. 5).

The report advocated more research into nonlethal chemicals “in accordance with U.S. treaty obligations in the Chemical Weapons Convention,” and said they had “compelling applications in engine stopping and crowd control that cannot be achieved by other means.”

Mark Wheelis, a University of California-Davis microbiology professor who opposes chemical incapacitant development, said using temporarily incapacitating agents could weaken norms against targeting civilians, and soldiers who are incapacitated and unable to fight.

“The entire justification from the JNLWD [the Pentagon’s Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate] point of view is the military is increasingly engaged in operations where combatants and noncombatants are intermixed,” said Wheelis.

He said soldiers might understandably be tempted in combat to kill temporarily incapacitated adversaries before they regain their senses.

The National Research Council report said weapons that deliver chemical contaminants to a crowd other than riot control agents would likely fail in meeting an international requirements agreed to at the Hague in 1907 requiring distinction between military and civilian targets and unnecessary suffering.

“Perhaps R&D may be able to resolve the issue of discrimination as well as to focus on a legally permissible human effect, such as psychological impairment rather than physiological impairment,” it said.

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Libya:  Germans Probe Illegal Exports to Weapons Site

German prosecutors have begun investigating two former employees of a German company who are suspected of illegally supplying equipment to a Libyan chemical weapons plant, Der Spiegel reported Monday (see GSN, May 8).

The former employees, including the former manager of the company, are suspected of illegally providing water filtration equipment to the Libyan al-Rabitah plant, which is believed to have produced nerve gas agents until 1990.  The German Federal Export Office approved the export because Libya listed a pharmaceutical plant in Tripoli as the end-user, according to Der Spiegel.  The office said no export to the al-Rabitah plant had been approved.

If the former employees are found to have violated German foreign trade laws, they could be sentenced to up to two years in prison, Der Spiegel reported (Der Spiegel, Nov. 4 in FBIS-WEU, Nov. 4).

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United States II:  Army Restructures Demilitarization Program

U.S. Army officials restructuring the service’s chemical demilitarization efforts might replace program head Mario Fiori, assistant Army secretary for Installations and Environment, the Anniston Star reported yesterday (see GSN, June 14).

Questions over Fiori’s management of the program arose when a series of e-mails leaked to reporters indicated that the Army planned to conduct a public relations campaign against local officials who had criticized the community’s preparedness for a chemical weapons incident, the Star reported.  Fiori is alleged to have created the plan.

If Fiori is replaced, it will be the third time in three years that the Army has changed oversight of the program.  Army Maj. Gen. Claude Bolton and Undersecretary of Defense Pete Aldridge are believed to be likely candidates for Fiori’s replacement, according to the Star.

An Army spokesman denied that there has been no talk of replacing Fiori, but did not say whether the chemical demilitarization program would be shifted to the Army Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Department, which oversaw the program in the past (Jason Landers, Anniston Star, Nov. 5).

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United States:  Panel Urges Pentagon Research for Nonlethal Weapons

The U.S. National Research Council released a preliminary report Monday advocating more research into nonlethal chemicals and citing their “compelling applications in engine stopping and crowd control that cannot be achieved by other means” (see GSN, Nov. 4).

“Terrorists often put themselves in the middle of noncombatants — so how do you deal with that?” said Miriam John, vice president of the California Division of Sandia National Laboratories and chair of the committee that conducted the report.  “You have to have some options to neutralize folks, so you can then sort out the bad guys from the good guys.”

The report, which is expected to be completed this winter, was requested by the U.S. Navy as a step toward using chemicals to defend ships and facilities, the Los Angeles Times reported today.  The Pentagon also hoped for applications in dealing with hostile civilians.

The panel recommended an emphasis on researching the effects and disperal methods of both “calmative” chemical agents and “malodorants.”

The use of chemicals on civilians might violate the Chemical Weapons Convention, some experts noted.

“The panel’s findings will be used by the Pentagon to redouble their chemical weapons development efforts, with potentially disastrous results for arms control,” said Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, which has been looking into chemical weapons documents.  “Other countries will follow suit, and controls on chemicals could quickly destabilize.”

Mark Wheelis, a professor of microbiology at the University of California-Davis, said that equipment used for nonlethal chemicals could easily be used for lethal chemicals.

“We would make it far more difficult to figure out if other nations have lethal chemical weapons or not,” Wheelis said.  “It’s much easier to hide a lethal chemical weapons program if you have a nonlethal program” (Aaron Zitner, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 5).

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